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: ΝΥΞ ΓΑΡ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ

"_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There is no longer any reason why the Journal should not be published in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."

* * * * *

ΝΥΞ ΓΑΡ ΕΡΧΕΤΑΙ

"_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.

_December_ 11.--A touch of the _morbus eruditorum_, to which I am as

little subject as most folks, and have it less now than when young. It

is a tremor of the heart, the pulsation of which becomes painfully

sensible--a disposition to causeless alarm--much lassitude--and decay of

vigour of mind and activity of intellect. The reins feel weary and

painful, and the mind is apt to receive and encourage gloomy

apprehensions and causeless fears. Fighting with this fiend is not

always the best way to conquer him. I have always found exercise and the

open air better than reasoning. But such weather as is now without doors

does not encourage _la petite guerre_, so we must give him battle in

form, by letting both mind and body know that, supposing one the House

of Commons and the other the House of Peers, my will is sovereign over

both. There is a good description of this species of mental weakness in

the fine play of Beaumont and Fletcher called _The Lover's Progress_,

where the man, warned that his death is approaching, works himself into

an agony of fear, and calls for assistance, though there is no apparent

danger. The apparition of the innkeeper's ghost, in the same play,

hovers between the ludicrous and [the terrible]. To me the touches of

the former quality which it contains seem to augment the effect of the

latter--- they seem to give reality to the supernatural, as being

circumstances with which an inventor would hardly have garnished his

story.[68]

Will Clerk says he has a theory on the vitrified forts. I wonder if he

and I agree. I think accidental conflagration is the cause.

_December_ 12.--Hogg came to breakfast this morning, having taken and

brought for his companion the Galashiels bard, David Thomson,[69] as to

a meeting of "huzz Tividale poets." The honest grunter opines with a

delightful _naïveté_ that Moore's verses are far owre sweet--answered by

Thomson that Moore's ear or notes, I forget which, were finely strung.

"They are far owre finely strung," replied he of the Forest, "for mine

are just reeght." It reminded me of Queen Bess, when questioning

Melville sharply and closely whether Queen [Mary] was taller than her,

and, extracting an answer in the affirmative, she replied, "Then your

Queen is too tall, for I am just the proper height."

Was engaged the whole day with Sheriff Court processes. There is

something sickening in seeing poor devils drawn into great expense

about trifles by interested attorneys. But too cheap access to

litigation has its evils on the other hand, for the proneness of the

lower class to gratify spite and revenge in this way would be a dreadful

evil were they able to endure the expense. Very few cases come before

the Sheriff-court of Selkirkshire that ought to come anywhere. Wretched

wranglings about a few pounds, begun in spleen, and carried on from

obstinacy, and at length from fear of the conclusion to the banquet of

ill-humour, "D--n--n of expenses."[70] I try to check it as well as I

can; "but so 'twill be when I am gone."

_December_ 12.--Dined at home, and spent the evening in writing--Anne

and Lady Scott at the theatre to see Mathews; a very clever man my

friend Mathews; but it is tiresome to be funny for a whole evening, so I

was content and stupid at home.

An odd optical delusion has amused me these two last nights. I have been

of late, for the first time, condemned to the constant use of

spectacles. Now, when I have laid them aside to step into a room dimly

lighted, out of the strong light which I use for writing, I have seen,

or seemed to see, through the rims of the same spectacles which I have

left behind me. At first the impression was so lively that I put my hand

to my eyes believing I had the actual spectacles on at the moment. But

what I saw was only the eidolon or image of said useful servants. This

fortifies some of Dr. Hibbert's positions about spectral appearances.

_December_ 13.--Letter from Lady Stafford--kind and friendly after the

wont of Banzu-Mohr-ar-chat.[71] This is wrong spelled, I know. Her

countenance is something for Sophia, whose company should be--as ladies

are said to choose their liquor--little and good. To be acquainted with

persons of mere _ton_ is a nuisance and a scrape--to be known to persons

of real fashion and fortune is in London a very great advantage. She is

besides sure of the hereditary and constant friendship of the Buccleuch

ladies, as well as those of Montagu and of the Harden family, of the

Marchioness of Northampton, Lady Melville, and others, also the Miss

Ardens, upon whose kind offices I have some claim, and would count upon

them whether such claim existed or no. So she is well enough established

among the Right-hand file, which is very necessary in London where

second-rate fashion is like false jewels.

Went to the yearly court of the Edinburgh Assurance Company, to which I

am one of those graceful and useless appendages, called Directors

Extraordinary--an extraordinary director I should prove had they elected

me an ordinary one. There were there moneyers and great oneyers[72], men

of metal--discounters and counters--sharp, grave, prudential faces--eyes

weak with ciphering by lamplight--men who say to gold, Be thou paper,

and to paper, Be thou turned into fine gold. Many a bustling,

sharp-faced, keen-eyed writer too--some perhaps speculating with their

clients' property. My reverend seigniors had expected a motion for

printing their contract, which I, as a piece of light artillery, was

brought down and got into battery to oppose. I should certainly have

done this on the general ground, that while each partner could at any

time obtain sight of the contract at a call on the directors or

managers, it would be absurd to print it for the use of the Company--and

that exposing it to the world at large was in all respects unnecessary,

and might teach novel companies to avail themselves of our rules and

calculations--if false, for the purpose of exposing our errors--if

correct, for the purpose of improving their own schemes on our model.

But my eloquence was not required, no one renewing the motion under

question; so off I came, my ears still ringing with the sounds of

thousands and tens of thousands, and my eyes dazzled with the golden

gleam offered by so many capitalists.

Walked home with the Solicitor[73]--decidedly the most hopeful young man

of his time; high connection, great talent, spirited ambition, a ready

and prompt elocution, with a good voice and dignified manner, prompt and

steady courage, vigilant and constant assiduity, popularity with the

young men, and the good opinion of the old, will, if I mistake not,

carry him as [high as] any man who has been since the days of old Hal

Dundas.[74] He is hot though, and rather hasty: this should be amended.

They who would play at single-stick must bear with patience a rap over

the knuckles. Dined quietly with Lady Scott and Anne.

_December_ 14.--Affairs very bad in the money-market in London. It must

come here, and I have far too many engagements not to feel it. To end

the matter at once, I intend to borrow £10,000, with which my son's

marriage-contract allows me to charge my estate. At Whitsunday and

Martinmas I will have enough to pay up the incumbrance of £3000 due to

old Moss's daughter, and £5000 to Misses Ferguson, in whole or part.

This will enable us to dispense in a great measure with bank assistance,

and sleep in spite of thunder. I do not know whether it is this business

which makes me a little bilious, or rather the want of exercise during

the season of late, and change of the weather to too much heat. Thank

God, my circumstances are good,--upon a fair balance which I have made,

certainly not less than £40,000 or nearly £50,000 above the world. But

the sun and moon shall dance on the green ere carelessness, or hope of

gain, or facility of getting cash, shall make me go too deep again, were

it but for the disquiet of the thing. Dined: Lady Scott and Anne

quietly.

_December_ 15.--R.P. G[illies] came _sicut mos est_ at five o'clock to

make me confidant of the extremities of his distress. It is clear all he

has to do is to make the best agreement he can with his creditors. I

remember many years since the poor fellow told me he thought there was

something interesting in having difficulties. Poor lad, he will have

enough of them now. He talks about writing translations for the

booksellers from the German to the amount of five or six hundred pounds,

but this is like a man proposing to run a whole day at top speed. Yet,

if he had good subjects, R.P.G. is one of the best translators I know,

and something must be done for him certainly, though, I fear, it will be

necessary to go to the bottom of the ulcer; palliatives won't do. He is

terribly imprudent, yet a worthy and benevolent creature--a great bore

withal. Dined alone with family. I am determined not to stand mine host

to all Scotland and England as I have done. This shall be a saving,

since it must be a borrowing, year. We heard from Sophia; they are got

safe to town; but as Johnnie had a little bag of meal with him, to make

his porridge on the road, the whole inn-yard assembled to see the

operation. Junor, his maid, was of opinion that England was an "awfu'

country to make parritch in." God bless the poor baby, and restore his

perfect health!

_December_ 16.--R.P.G. and his friend Robert Wilson[75] came--the former

at five, as usual--the latter at three, as appointed. R[obert] W[ilson]

frankly said that R.P.G.'s case was quite desperate, that he was

insolvent, and that any attempt to save him at present would be just so

much cash thrown away. God knows, at this moment I have none to throw

away uselessly. For poor Gillies there was a melancholy mixture of

pathos and affectation in his statement, which really affected me; while

it told me that it would be useless to help him to money on such very

empty plans. I endeavoured to persuade him to make a virtue of

necessity, resign all to his creditors, and begin the world on a new

leaf. I offered him Chiefswood for a temporary retirement. Lady Scott

thinks I was wrong, and nobody could less desire such a neighbour, all

his affectations being caviare to me. But then the wife and children!

Went again to the Solicitor on a wrong night, being asked for to-morrow.

Lady Scott undertakes to keep my engagements recorded in future. _Sed

quis custodiet ipsam custodem_?

_December_ 17.--Dined with the Solicitor--Lord Chief-Baron[76]--Sir

William Boothby, nephew of old Sir Brooke, the dandy poet, etc. Annoyed

with anxious presentiments, which the night's post must dispel or

confirm--all in London as bad as possible.

_December_ 18.--Ballantyne called on me this morning. _Venit illa

suprema dies_. My extremity is come. Cadell has received letters from

London which all but positively announce the failure of Hurst and

Robinson, so that Constable & Co. must follow, and I must go with poor

James Ballantyne for company. I suppose it will involve my all. But if

they leave me £500, I can still make it £1000 or £1200 a year. And if

they take my salaries of £1300 and £300, they cannot but give me

something out of them. I have been rash in anticipating funds to buy

land, but then I made from £5000 to £10,000 a year, and land was my

temptation. I think nobody can lose a penny--that is one comfort. Men

will think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in

thinking that my fall makes them higher, or seems so at least. I have

the satisfaction to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage

to many, and that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on

account of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good

to the poor. This news will make sad hearts at Darnick, and in the

cottages of Abbotsford, which I do not nourish the least hope of

preserving. It has been my Delilah, and so I have often termed it; and

now the recollection of the extensive woods I planted, and the walks I

have formed, from which strangers must derive both the pleasure and

profit, will excite feelings likely to sober my gayest moments. I have

half resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall

with such a diminished crest? How live a poor indebted man where I was

once the wealthy, the honoured? My children are provided; thank God for

that. I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to

receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish--but

the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more

than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must

get them kind masters; there may be yet those who loving me may love my

dog because it has been mine. I must end this, or I shall lose the tone

of mind with which men should meet distress.

* * * * *

I find my dogs' feet on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me

everywhere--this is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they

know how things are. Poor Will Laidlaw! poor Tom Purdie! this will be

news to wring your heart, and many a poor fellow's besides to whom my

prosperity was daily bread.

Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks his own ruin in contemplating

mine. I tried to enrich him indeed, and now all--all is gone. He will

have the "Journal" still, that is a comfort, for sure they cannot find a

better Editor. _They_--alas! who will _they_ be--the _unbekannten Obern_

who are to dispose of my all as they will? Some hard-eyed banker; some

of those men of millions whom I described. Cadell showed more kind and

personal feeling to me than I thought he had possessed. He says there

are some properties of works that will revert to me, the copy-money not

being paid, but it cannot be any very great matter, I should think.

Another person did not afford me all the sympathy I expected, perhaps

because I seemed to need little support, yet that is not her nature,

which is generous and kind. She thinks I have been imprudent, trusting

men so far. Perhaps so--but what could I do? I must sell my books to

some one, and these folks gave me the largest price; if they had kept

their ground I could have brought myself round fast enough by the plan

of 14th December. I now view matters at the very worst, and suppose that

my all must go to supply the deficiencies of Constable. I fear it must

be so. His connections with Hurst and Robinson have been so intimate

that they must be largely involved. This is the worst of the concern;

our own is comparatively plain sailing.

Poor Gillies called yesterday to tell me he was in extremity. God knows

I had every cause to have returned him the same answer. I must think his

situation worse than mine, as through his incoherent, miserable tale, I

could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet fondly

imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can work

with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may labour

enough to gain the mere support of his family. For myself, the magic

wand of the Unknown is shivered in his grasp. He must henceforth be

termed the Too-well-known. The feast of fancy is over with the feeling

of independence. I can no longer have the delight of waking in the

morning with bright ideas in my mind, haste to commit them to paper, and

count them monthly, as the means of planting such groves, and purchasing

such wastes; replacing my dreams of fiction by other prospective visions

of walks by

"Fountain heads, and pathless groves

Places which pale passion loves."[77]

[Sidenote: Footnote to page 44 in the original MS.:--"Turn back to page

41 and 42. I turned the page accidentally, and the partner of a bankrupt

concern ought not to waste two leaves of paper."]

This cannot be; but I may work substantial husbandry, work history, and

such concerns. They will not be received with the same enthusiasm; at

least I much doubt the general knowledge that an author must write for

his bread, at least for improving his pittance, degrades him and his

productions in the public eye. He falls into the second-rate rank of

estimation:

"While the harness sore galls, and the spurs his sides goad,

The high-mettled racer's a hack on the road."[78]

It is a bitter thought; but if tears start at it, let them flow. I am so

much of this mind, that if any one would now offer to relieve all my

embarrassments on condition I would continue the exertions which brought

it there, dear as the place is to me, I hardly think I could undertake

the labour on which I entered with my usual alacrity only this morning,

though not without a boding feeling of my exertions proving useless. Yet

to save Abbotsford I would attempt all that was possible. My heart

clings to the place I have created. There is scarce a tree on it that

does not owe its being to me, and the pain of leaving it is greater than

I can tell. I have about £10,000 of Constable's, for which I am bound to

give literary value, but if I am obliged to pay other debts for him, I

will take leave to retain this sum at his credit. We shall have made

some _kittle_ questions of literary property amongst us. Once more,

"Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards."

I have endeavoured at times to give vent to thoughts naturally so

painful, by writing these notices, partly to keep them at bay by busying

myself with the history of the French Convention. I thank God I can do

both with reasonable composure. I wonder how Anne will bear this

affliction? She is passionate, but stout-hearted and courageous in

important matters, though irritable in trifles. I am glad Lockhart and

his wife are gone. Why? I cannot tell; but I _am_ pleased to be left to

my own regrets without being melted by condolences, though of the most

sincere and affectionate kind.

* * * * *

Anne bears her misfortune gallantly and well, with a natural feeling, no

doubt, of the rank and consideration she is about to lose. Lady Scott is

incredulous, and persists in cherishing hope where there is no ground

for hope. I wish it may not bring on the gloom of spirits which has

given me such distress. If she were the active person she once was that

would not be. Now I fear it more than what Constable or Cadell will tell

me this evening, so that my mind is made up.

Oddly enough, it happened. Mine honest friend Hector came in before

dinner to ask a copy of my seal of Arms, with a sly kindliness of

intimation that it was for some agreeable purpose.

_Half-past Eight_.--I closed this book under the consciousness of

impending ruin, I open it an hour after, thanks be to God, with the

strong hope that matters may be got over safely and honourably, in a

mercantile sense. Cadell came at eight to communicate a letter from

Hurst and Robinson, intimating they had stood the storm, and though

clamorous for assistance from Scotland, saying they had prepared their

strongholds without need of the banks.

[Sidenote: This was a mistake.]

This is all so far well, but I will not borrow any money on my estate

till I see things reasonably safe. Stocks have risen from ---- to ----,

a strong proof that confidence is restored. But I will yield to no

delusive hopes, and fall back fall edge, my resolutions hold.

I shall always think the better of Cadell for this, not merely because

his feet are beautiful on the mountains who brings good tidings, but

because he showed feeling--deep feeling, poor fellow--he who I thought

had no more than his numeration table, and who, if he had had his whole

counting-house full of sensibility, had yet his wife and children to

bestow it upon--I will not forget this if I get through. I love the

virtues of rough and round men; the others are apt to escape in salt

rheum, sal-volatile, and a white pocket-handkerchief. An odd thought

strikes me: when I die will the Journal of these days be taken out of

the ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read as the transient pout of a man

worth £60,000, with wonder that the well-seeming Baronet should ever

have experienced such a hitch? Or will it be found in some obscure

lodging-house, where the decayed son of chivalry has hung up his

scutcheon for some 20s. a week, and where one or two old friends will

look grave and whisper to each other, "Poor gentleman," "A well-meaning

man," "Nobody's enemy but his own," "Thought his parts could never wear

out," "Family poorly left," "Pity he took that foolish title"? Who can

answer this question?

* * * * *

What a life mine has been!--half educated, almost wholly neglected or

left to myself, stuffing my head with most nonsensical trash, and

undervalued in society for a time by most of my companions, getting

forward and held a bold and clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of

all who thought me a mere dreamer, broken-hearted for two years, my

heart handsomely pieced again, but the crack will remain to my dying

day. Rich and poor four or five times, once on the verge of ruin, yet

opened new sources of wealth almost overflowing. Now taken in my pitch

of pride, and nearly winged (unless the good news hold), because London

chooses to be in an uproar, and in the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor

inoffensive lion like myself is pushed to the wall. And what is to be

the end of it? God knows. And so ends the catechism.

_December_ 19.--Ballantyne here before breakfast. He looks on Cadell's

last night's news with more confidence than I do; but I must go to work

be my thoughts sober or lively. Constable came in and sat an hour. The

old gentleman is firm as a rock, and scorns the idea of Hurst and

Robinson's stopping. He talks of going up to London next week and making

sales of our interest in W[oodstock] and _Boney_, which would put a

hedge round his finances. He is a very clever fellow, and will, I think,

bear us through.

Dined at Lord Chief-Baron's.[79] Lord Justice-Clerk; Lord President;[80]

Captain Scarlett,[81] a gentlemanlike young man, the son of the great

Counsel,[82] and a friend of my son Walter; Lady Charlotte Hope, and

other woman-kind; R. Dundas of Arniston, and his pleasant and

good-humoured little wife, whose quick intelligent look pleases me more,

though her face be plain, than a hundred mechanical beauties.

_December_ 20.--I like Ch. Ba. Shepherd very much--- as much, I think,

as any man I have learned to know of late years. There is a neatness and

precision, a closeness and truth, in the tone of his conversation, which

shows what a lawyer he must have been. Perfect good-humour and suavity

of manner, with a little warmth of temper on suitable occasions. His

great deafness alone prevented him from being Lord Chief-Justice. I

never saw a man so patient under such a malady. He loves society, and

converses excellently; yet is often obliged, in a mixed company

particularly, to lay aside his trumpet, retire into himself, and

withdraw from the talk. He does this with an expression of patience on

his countenance which touches one much. He has occasion for patience

otherwise, I should think, for Lady S. is fine and fidgety, and too

anxious to have everything _pointe devise_.

Constable's licence for the Dedication is come, which will make him

happy.[83]

Dined with James Ballantyne, and met my old friend Mathews, the

comedian, with his son, now grown up a clever, rather forward lad, who

makes songs in the style of James Smith or Colman, and sings them with

spirit; rather lengthy though.

_December 21._--There have been odd associations attending my two last

meetings with Mathews. The last time I saw him, before yesterday

evening, he dined with me in company with poor Sir Alexander Boswell,

who was killed within two or three months.[84] I never saw Sir Alexander

more.[85] The time before was in 1815, when John Scott of Gala and I

were returning from France, and passed through London, when we brought

Mathews down as far as Leamington. Poor Byron lunched, or rather made an

early dinner, with us at Long's, and a most brilliant day we had of it.

I never saw Byron so full of fun, frolic, wit, and whim: he was as

playful as a kitten. Well, I never saw him again.[86] So this man of

mirth, with his merry meetings, has brought me no luck. I like better

that he should throw in his talent of mimicry and humour into the

present current tone of the company, than that he should be required to

give this, that, and t'other _bit_ selected from his public recitations.

They are good certainly--excellent; but then you _must_ laugh, and that

is always severe to me. When I do laugh in sincerity, the joke must be

or seem unpremeditated. I could not help thinking, in the midst of the

glee, what gloom had lately been over the minds of three of the company,

Cadell, J.B., and the Journalist. What a strange scene if the surge of

conversation could suddenly ebb like the tide, and [show] us the state

of people's real minds! Savary[87] might have been gay in such a party

with all his forgeries in his heart.

"No eyes the rooks discover

Which lurk beneath the deep."[88]

Life could not be endured were it seen in reality.

Things are mending in town, and H[urst] and R[obinson] write with

confidence, and are, it would seem, strongly supported by wealthy

friends. Cadell and Constable are confident of their making their way

through the storm, and the impression of their stability is general in

London. I hear the same from Lockhart. Indeed, I now believe that they

wrote gloomy letters to Constable, chiefly to get as much money out of

them as they possibly could. But they had well-nigh overdone it. This

being Teind Wednesday must be a day of leisure and labour. Sophia has

got a house, 25 Pall Mall. Dined at home with Lady Scott and Anne.

_December_ 22.--I wrote six of my close pages yesterday, which is about

twenty-four pages in print. What is more, I think it comes off

twangingly. The story is so very interesting in itself, that there is no

fear of the book answering.[89] Superficial it must be, but I do not

disown the charge. Better a superficial book, which brings well and

strikingly together the known and acknowledged facts, than a dull boring

narrative, pausing to see further into a mill-stone at every moment than

the nature of the mill-stone admits. Nothing is so tiresome as walking

through some beautiful scene with a _minute philosopher_, a botanist, or

pebble-gatherer, who is eternally calling your attention from the grand

features of the natural scenery to look at grasses and chucky-stones.

Yet, in their way, they give useful information; and so does the minute

historian. Gad, I think that will look well in the preface. My bile is

quite gone. I really believe it arose from mere anxiety. What a

wonderful connection between the mind and body!

The air of "Bonnie Dundee" running in my head to-day, I [wrote] a few

verses to it before dinner, taking the key-note from the story of

Clavers leaving the Scottish Convention of Estates in 1688-9.[90] I

wonder if they are good. Ah! poor Will Erskine![91] thou couldst and

wouldst have told me. I must consult J.B., who is as honest as was W.E.

But then, though he has good taste too, there is a little of Big Bow-wow

about it. Can't say what made me take a frisk so uncommon of late years,

as to write verses of freewill. I suppose the same impulse which makes

birds sing when the storm seems blown over.

Dined at Lord Minto's. There were Lord and Lady Ruthven, Will Clerk, and

Thomas Thomson,--a right choice party. There was also my very old friend

Mrs. Brydone, the relict of the traveller,[92] and daughter of Principal

Robertson, and really worthy of such a connection--Lady Minto, who is

also peculiarly agreeable--and her sister, Mrs. Admiral Adam, in the

evening.

_December_ 23.--The present Lord Minto is a very agreeable,

well-informed, and sensible man, but he possesses neither the high

breeding, ease of manner, nor eloquence of his father, the first Earl.

That Sir Gilbert was indeed a man among a thousand. I knew him very

intimately in the beginning of the century, and, which was very

agreeable, was much at his house on very easy terms. He loved the Muses,

and worshipped them in secret, and used to read some of his poetry,

which was but middling.

Tom Campbell lived at Minto, but it was in a state of dependence which

he brooked very ill. He was kindly treated, but would not see it in the

right view, and suspected slights, and so on, where no such thing was

meant. There was a turn of Savage about Tom though without his

blackguardism--a kind of waywardness of mind and irritability that must

have made a man of his genius truly unhappy. Lord Minto, with the

mildest manners, was very tenacious of his opinions, although he changed

them twice in the crisis of politics. He was the early friend of Fox,

and made a figure towards the end of the American war, or during the

struggles betwixt Fox and Pitt. Then came the Revolution, and he joined

the Anti-Gallican party so keenly, that he declared against Addington's

peace with France, and was for a time, I believe, a Wyndhamite. He was

reconciled to the Whigs on the Fox and Grenville coalition; but I have

heard that Fox, contrary to his wont, retained such personal feelings as

made him object to Sir Gilbert Elliot's having a seat in the Cabinet; so

he was sent as Governor-General to India--a better thing, I take it, for

his fortune. He died shortly after his return,[93] at Hatfield or

Barnet, on his way down to his native country. He was a most pleasing

and amiable man. I was very sorry for his death, though I do not know

how we should have met, for the contested election in 1805 [in

Roxburghshire] had placed some coldness betwixt the present Lord and me.

I was certainly anxious for Sir Alexander Don, both as friend of my most

kind friend Charles, Duke of Buccleuch, and on political accounts; and

those thwartings are what men in public life do not like to endure.

After a cessation of friendship for some years, we have come about

again. We never had the slightest personal dispute or disagreement. But

politics are the blowpipe beneath whose influence the best cemented

friendships too often dissever; and ours, after all, was only a very

familiar acquaintance.

It is very odd that the common people at Minto and the neighbourhood

will not believe to this hour that the first Earl is dead. They think he

had done something in India which he could not answer for--that the

house was rebuilt on a scale unusually large to give him a suite of

secret apartments, and that he often walks about the woods and crags of

Minto at night, with a white nightcap, and long white beard. The

circumstance of his having died on the road down to Scotland is the sole

foundation of this absurd legend, which shows how willing the vulgar are

to gull themselves when they can find no one else to take the trouble. I

have seen people who could read, write, and cipher, shrug their

shoulders and look mysterious when this subject was mentioned. One very

absurd addition was made on occasion of a great ball at Minto House,

which it was said was given to draw all people away from the grounds,

that the concealed Earl might have leisure for his exercise. This was on

the principle in the German play,[94] where, to hide their conspiracy,

the associates join in a chorus song.

We dined at home; Mr. Davidoff and his tutor kept an engagement with us

to dinner notwithstanding the death of the Emperor Alexander. They went

to the play with the womankind; I stayed at home to write.

_December_ 24.--Wrote Walter and Jane, and gave the former an account of

how things had been in the money market, and the loan of £10,000.

Constable has a scheme of publishing the works of the Author of

W[averley] in a superior style, at £1, 1s. volume. He says he will

answer for making £20,000 of this, and liberally offered me any share of

the profit. I have no great claim to any, as I have only to contribute

the notes, which are light work; yet a few thousands coming in will be a

good thing--besides the P[rinting] Office. Constable, though

valetudinary, and cross with his partner, is certainly as good a pilot

in these rough seas as ever man put faith in. His rally has put me in

mind of the old song:--

"The tailor raise and shook his duds,

He gar'd the BILLS flee aff in cluds,

And they that stayed gat fearfu' thuds--

The tailor proved a man, O."[95]

We are for Abbotsford to-day, with a light heart.

_Abbotsford, December_ 25.--Arrived here last night at seven. Our halls

are silent compared to last year, but let us be thankful--when we think

how near the chance appeared but a week since that these halls would

have been ours no longer. _Barbarus has segetes? Nullum numen abest, si

sit prudentia_. There shall be no lack of wisdom. But come--_il faut

cultiver notre jardin_.[96] Let us see: I will write out the "Bonnets of

Bonnie Dundee"; I will sketch a preface to _La Rochejacquelin_ for

_Constable's Miscellany,_ and try about a specimen of notes for the

W[averley Novels]. Together with letters and by-business, it will be a

good day's work.

"I make a vow,

And keep it true."

I will accept no invitation for dinner, save one to Newton-Don, and

Mertoun to-morrow, instead of Christmas Day. On this day of general

devotion I have a particular call for gratitude!!

* * * * *

My God! what poor creatures we are! After all my fair proposals

yesterday, I was seized with a most violent pain in the right kidney and

parts adjacent, which, joined to deadly sickness which it brought on,

forced me instantly to go to bed and send for Clarkson.[97] He came and

inquired, pronouncing the complaint to be gravel augmented by bile. I

was in great agony till about two o'clock, but awoke with the pain gone.

I got up, had a fire in my dressing-closet, and had Dalgleish to shave

me--two trifles, which I only mention, because they are contrary to my

hardy and independent personal habits. But although a man cannot be a

hero to his valet, his valet in sickness becomes of great use to him. I

cannot expect that this first will be the last visit of this cruel

complaint; but shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not receive

evil?

_December 27th_.--Slept twelve hours at a stretch, being much exhausted.

Totally without pain to-day, but uncomfortable from the effects of

calomel, which, with me at least, is like the assistance of an auxiliary

army, just one degree more tolerable than the enemy it chases away.

Calomel contemplations are not worth recording. I wrote an introduction

and a few notes to the _Memoirs of Madame La Rochejacquelin_,[98] being

all that I was equal to.

Sir Adam Ferguson came over and tried to marry my verses to the tune of

"Bonnie Dundee." They seem well adapted to each other. Dined with Lady

Scott and Anne.

Worked at Pepys in the evening, with the purpose of review for

Lockhart.[99] Notwithstanding the depressing effects of the calomel, I

feel the pleasure of being alone and uninterrupted. Few men, leading a

quiet life, and without any strong or highly varied change of

circumstances, have seen more variety of society than I--few have

enjoyed it more, or been _bored_, as it is called, less by the company

of tiresome people. I have rarely, if ever, found any one, out of whom I

could not extract amusement or edification; and were I obliged to

account for hints afforded on such occasions, I should make an ample

deduction from my inventive powers. Still, however, from the earliest

time I can remember, I preferred the pleasure of being alone to waiting

for visitors, and have often taken a bannock and a bit of cheese to the

wood or hill, to avoid dining with company. As I grew from boyhood to

manhood I saw this would not do; and that to gain a place in men's

esteem I must mix and bustle with them. Pride and an excitation of

spirits supplied the real pleasure which others seem to feel in society,

and certainly upon many occasions it was real. Still, if the question

was, eternal company, without the power of retiring within yourself, or

solitary confinement for life, I should say, "Turnkey, lock the cell!"

My life, though not without its fits of waking and strong exertion, has

been a sort of dream, spent in

"Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy."[100]

I have worn a wishing-cap, the power of which has been to divert present

griefs by a touch of the wand of imagination, and gild over the future

prospect by prospects more fair than can ever be realised. Somewhere it

is said that this castle-building--this wielding of the aërial

trowel--is fatal to exertions in actual life. I cannot tell, I have not

found it so. I cannot, indeed, say like Madame Genlis, that in the

imaginary scenes in which I have acted a part I ever prepared myself for

anything which actually befell me; but I have certainly fashioned out

much that made the present hour pass pleasantly away, and much that has

enabled me to contribute to the amusement of the public. Since I was

five years old I cannot remember the time when I had not some ideal part

to play for my own solitary amusement.

_December_ 28.--Somehow I think the attack on Christmas Day has been of

a critical kind, and, having gone off so well, may be productive rather

of health than continued indisposition. If one is to get a renewal of

health in his fifty-fourth year, he must look to pay fine for it. Last

night George Thomson[101] came to see how I was, poor fellow. He has

talent, is well informed, and has an excellent heart; but there is an

eccentricity about him that defies description. I wish to God I saw him

provided in a country kirk. That, with a rational wife--that is, if

there is such a thing to be gotten for him,--would, I think, bring him

to a steady temper. At present he is between the tyning and the winning.

If I could get him to set to any hard study, he would do something

clever.

_How to make a critic_.--A sly rogue, sheltering himself under the

generic name of Mr. Campbell, requested of me, through the penny-post,

the loan of £50 for two years, having an impulse, as he said, to make

this demand. As I felt no corresponding impulse, I begged to decline a

demand which might have been as reasonably made by any Campbell on

earth; and another impulse has determined the man of fifty pounds to

send me anonymous abuse of my works and temper and selfish disposition.

The severity of the joke lies in 14d. for postage, to avoid which his

next epistle shall go back to the clerks of the Post Office, as not for

S.W.S. How the severe rogue would be disappointed, if he knew I never

looked at more than the first and last lines of his satirical effusion!

When I first saw that a literary profession was to be my fate, I

endeavoured by all efforts of stoicism to divest myself of that

irritable degree of sensibility--or, to speak plainly, of vanity--which

makes the poetical race miserable and ridiculous. The anxiety of a poet

for praise and for compliments I have always endeavoured [to keep down].

_December_ 29.--Base feelings this same calomel gives one--mean, poor,

and abject--a wretch, as Will Rose says:--

"Fie, fie, on silly coward man,

That he should be the slave o't."[102]

Then it makes one "wofully dogged and snappish," as Dr. Rutty, the

Quaker, says in his _Gurnal._[103]

Sent Lockhart four pages on Sheridan's plays; not very good, I think,

but the demand came sudden. Must go to W----k![104] yet am vexed by that

humour of contradiction which makes me incline to do anything else in

preference. Commenced preface for new edition of my Novels. The city of

Cork send my freedom in a silver box. I thought I was out of their grace

for going to see Blarney rather than the Cove, for which I was attacked

and defended in the papers when in Ireland. I am sure they are so civil

that I would have gone wherever they wished me to go if I had had any

one to have told me what I ought to be most inquisitive about.

"For if I should as lion come in strife

Into such place, 't were pity of my life."[105]

_December_ 30.--Spent at home and in labour--with the weight of

unpleasant news from Edinburgh. J.B. is like to be pinched next week

unless the loan can be brought forward. I must and have endeavoured to

supply him. At present the result of my attempts is uncertain. I am even

more anxious about C[onstable] & Co., unless they can get assistance

from their London friends to whom they gave much. All is in God's hands.

The worst can only be what I have before anticipated. But I must, I

think, renounce the cigars. They brought back (using two this evening)

the irritation of which I had no feelings while abstaining from them.

Dined alone with Gordon,[106] Lady S., and Anne. James Curle, Melrose,

has handsomely lent me £600; he has done kindly. I have served him

before and will again if in my power.

_December 31_.--Took a good sharp walk the first time since my illness,

and found myself the better in health and spirits. Being Hogmanay, there

dined with us Colonel Russell and his sisters, Sir Adam Ferguson and

Lady, Colonel Ferguson, with Mary and Margaret; an auld-warld party, who

made themselves happy in the auld fashion. I felt so tired about eleven

that I was forced to steal to bed.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] See _ante_, p. 12. Mr. James Ballantyne and Mr. Cadell concurred

with Mr. Constable and Sir Walter in the propriety of assisting

Robinson.

[53] Robert Pierce Gillies, once proprietor of a good estate in

Kincardineshire, and member of the Scotch Bar. It is pleasant to find

Mr. Gillies expressing his gratitude for what Sir Walter had done for

him more than twenty-five years after this paragraph was written. "He

was," says R.P.G., "not only among the earliest but most persevering of

my friends--persevering in spite of my waywardness."--_Memoirs of a

Literary Veteran_, including Sketches and Anecdotes of the most

distinguished Literary Characters from 1794 to 1849 (3 vols., London,

1851), vol. i. p. 321. Mr. Gillies died in 1861.

[54] Mr. Gillies was, however, warmly welcomed by another publisher in

Edinburgh, who paid him £100 for his bulky MSS., and issued the book in

1825 under the title of _The Magic Ring_, 3 vols. Its failure with the

public prevented a repetition of the experiment!

[55] _King Richard III._, Act III. Sc. 7.--J.G.L.

[56] Of the many Edinburgh suppers of this period, commemorated by Lord

Cockburn, not the least pleasant were the friendly gatherings in 30

Abercromby Place, the town house of Dr. James Russell, Professor of

Clinical Surgery. They were given fortnightly after the meetings of the

Royal Society during the Session, and are occasionally mentioned in the

Journal. Dr. Russell died in 1836.

[57] Mr. Mackenzie had been consulting Sir Walter about collecting his

own juvenile poetry.--J.G.L. Though the venerable author of _The Man of

Feeling_ did not die till 1831, he does not appear to have carried out

his intention.

[58] Every alternate Wednesday during the Winter and Summer sessions,

the Lords Commissioners of Teinds (Tithes), consisting of a certain

number of the judges, held a "Teind Court"--for hearing cases relating

to the secular affairs of the Church of Scotland. As the Teind Court has

a separate establishment of clerks and officers, Sir Walter was freed

from duty at the Parliament House on these days. The Court now sits on

alternate Mondays only.

[59] Mr. Lockhart suggests Lords Hermand and Succoth, the former living

at 124 George Street, and the latter at 1 Park Place.

[60] William Knox died 12th November. He had published _Songs of

Israel_, 1824, _A Visit to Dublin_, 1824, _The Harp of Zion_, 1825,

etc., besides _The Lonely Hearth_. His publisher (Mr. Anderson, junior,

of Edinburgh) remembers that Sir Walter occasionally wrote to Knox and

sent him money--£10 at a time.--J.G.L.

[61] In Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_.

[62] Providence was kinder to the venerable lady than the Government, as

at this juncture a handsome legacy came to her from an unexpected

quarter. _Memoir and Correspondence_, Lond. 1845, vol. iii. p. 71.

[63] _Measure for Measure_, Act iv. Sc. 3.--J.G.L.

[64] Burns's _Dedication to Gavin Hamilton_.--J.G.L.

[65] _Don Quixote_, Pt. II. ch. 23.

[66] _Spectator_, No. 159.--J.G.L.

[67] Sir William Allan, President of the Royal Scottish Academy from

1838: he died at Edinburgh in 1850.

[68] _Beaumont and Fletcher_, 8vo, Lond. 1788, vol. v. pp.

410-413,419-426.

[69] For notices of David Thomson, see _Life_, October 1822, and T.

Craig Brown's _History of Selkirkshire_, 2 vols. 4to, Edin. 1886, vol.

i. pp. 505, 507, and 519.

[70] Burns's _Address to the Unco Guid_.--J.G.L.

[71] Banamhorar-Chat, _i.e._ the Great Lady of the Cat, is the Gaelic

title of the Countess-Duchess of Sutherland. The county of Sutherland

itself is in that dialect _Cattey_, and in the English name of the

neighbouring one, _Caithness_, we have another trace of the early

settlement of the _Clan Chattan_, whose chiefs bear the cognisance of a

Wild Cat. The Duchess-Countess died in 1838.--J.G.L.

[72] See 1 _King Henry IV_., Act II. Sc. 1.

[73] John Hope, Esq., was at this time Solicitor-General for Scotland,

afterwards Lord Justice-Clerk from 1841 until his death in 1858.

[74] Henry Dundas, the first Viscount Melville, first appeared in

Parliament as Lord Advocate of Scotland.--J.G.L.

[75] Robert Sym Wilson, Esq., W.S., Secretary to the Royal Bank of

Scotland.--J.G.L.

[76] The Right Hon. Sir Samuel Shepherd, who had been at the head of the

Court of Exchequer since 1819, was then living at 16 Coates Crescent; he

retired in 1830, and resided afterwards in England, where he died, aged

80, on the 30th November 1840. Before coming to Scotland, Sir Samuel had

been Solicitor-General in 1814, and Attorney-General in 1817.

[77] See _Nice Valour_, by John Fletcher; Beaumont and Fletcher's

_Works_.

[78] From Charles Dibdin's song, _The Racehorse_.

[79] Sir Samuel Shepherd.

[80] The Right Hon. Charles Hope, who held the office of Lord President

of the Court of Session for thirty years; he died in 1851 aged

eighty-nine.

[81] Afterwards Sir James Yorke Scarlett, G.C.B.

[82] Sir James Scarlett, first Lord Abinger.

[83] The Dedication of _Constable's Miscellany_ was penned by Sir

Walter--"To His Majesty King George IV., the most generous Patron even

of the most humble attempts towards the advantage of his subjects, this

_Miscellany_, designed to extend useful knowledge and elegant

literature, by placing works of standard merit within the attainment of

every class of readers, is most humbly inscribed by His Majesty's

dutiful and devoted subject--Archibald Constable."--J.G.L.

[84] Probably a slip of the pen for "weeks," as Mathews was in London in

March (1822), and we know that he dined with Scott in Castle Street on

the 10th of February. _Memoirs_, vol. iii. p. 262. Mr. Lockhart says,

"within a week," and at p. 33 vol. vii. gives an account of a dinner

party. Writing so many years after the event he may have mistaken the

date. James Boswell died in London 24th February 1822; his brother, Sir

Alexander, was at the funeral, and did not return to Edinburgh till

Saturday 23d March. James Stuart of Dunearn challenged him on Monday;

they fought on Tuesday, and Boswell died on the following day, March 27.

Mr. Lockhart says that "several circumstances of Sir Alexander's death

are exactly reproduced in the duel scene in _St. Ronan's Well_."

[85] In a letter to Skene written late in 1821, Scott, in expressing his

regret at not being able to meet Boswell, adds, "I hope J. Boz comes to

make some stay, but I shall scarce forgive him for not coming at the

fine season." The brothers Boswell had been Mr. Skene's schoolfellows

and intimate friends; and he had lived much with them both in England

and Scotland.

Mr. Skene says, in a note to Letter 28, that "they were men of

remarkable talents, and James of great learning, both evincing a dash of

their father's eccentricity, but joined to greater talent. Sir Walter

took great pleasure in their society, but James being resident in

London, the opportunity of enjoying his company had of late been rare.

Upon the present occasion he had dined with me in the greatest health

and spirits the evening before his departure for London, and in a week

we had accounts of his having been seized by a sudden illness which

carried him off. In a few weeks more his brother, Sir Alexander, was

killed in a duel occasioned by a foolish political lampoon which he had

written, and in a thoughtless manner suffered to find its way to a

newspaper."--_Reminiscences_.

[86] See _Life_, vol. v. p. 87.

[87] Henry Savary, son of a banker in Bristol, had been tried for

forgery a few months before.

[88] From _What d'ye call it?_ by John Gay.

[89] _Life of Napoleon_.--J.G.L.

[90] See Scott's _Poetical Works_, vol. xii. pp. 194-97.--J.G.L.

[91] William Erskine of Kinnedder was Scott's senior by two years at the

bar, having passed Advocate in 1790. He became Sheriff of Orkney in

1809, and took his seat on the Bench as Lord Kinnedder, 29 January 1822;

he died on the 14th of August following. Scott and he met first in 1792,

and, as is well known, he afterwards "became the nearest and most

confidential of all his Edinburgh associates." In 1796 he arranged with

the publishers for Scott's earliest literary venture, a thin 4to of some

48 pages entitled _The Chase_, etc. See _Life_ throughout, more

particularly vol. i. pp. 279-80, 333-4, 338-9; ii. pp. 103-4; iv. pp.

12, 166, 369; v. p. 174; vi. p. 393; vii. pp. 1, 5, 6, 70-74. See

Appendix for Mr. Skene's account of the destruction of the letters from

Scott to Erskine.

[92] Patrick Brydone, author of _A Tour through Sicily and Malta_, 2

vols. 8vo, 1773.

[93] Gilbert, Earl of Minto, died in June 1814.--J.G.L.

[94] See Canning's _German Play_, in the _Anti-Jacobin_.--J.G.L.

[95] See Johnson's _Musical Museum_, No. 490, slightly altered.

[96] See _Candide_.--J.G.L.

[97] James Clarkson, Esq., surgeon, Melrose, son to Scott's old friend,

Dr. Clarkson of Selkirk.--J.G.L.

[98] See _Constable's Miscellany_, vol. v.--J.G.L.

[99] See the _Quarterly Review_ for January 1820--or Scott's

_Miscellaneous Prose Works_.--J.G.L.

[100] _As You Like it_, Act IV. Sc. 3.--J.G.L.

[101] Formerly tutor at Abbotsford. Mr. Lockhart says: "I observe, as

the sheet is passing through the press, the death of the Rev. George

Thomson--the happy 'Dominie Thomson' of the happy days of Abbotsford: he

died at Edinburgh on the 8th of January 1838."

[102] Burns's "O poortith cauld and restless love."

[103] John Rutty, M.D., a physician of some eminence in Dublin, died in

1775, and his executors published his very curious and absurd "Spiritual

Diary and Soliloquies." Boswell describes Johnson as being much amused

with the Quaker doctor's minute confessions. See the Life of Johnson

_sub anno_ 1777.--J.G.L.

[104] _Woodstock_--contracted for in 1823.

[105] _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act III. Sc. 1.

[106] George Huntly Gordon, amanuensis to Scott.

1826

1826.--JANUARY.

_January_ 1.--A year has passed--another has commenced. These solemn

divisions of time influence our feelings as they recur. Yet there is

nothing in it; for every day in the year closes a twelvemonth as well as

the 31st December. The latter is only the solemn pause, as when a guide,

showing a wild and mountainous road, calls on a party to pause and look

back at the scenes which they have just passed. To me this new year

opens sadly. There are these troublesome pecuniary difficulties, which

however, I think, this week should end. There is the absence of all my

children, Anne excepted, from our little family festival. There is,

besides, that ugly report of the 15th Hussars going to India. Walter, I

suppose, will have some step in view, and will go, and I fear Jane will

not dissuade him.

A hard, frosty day--cold, but dry and pleasant under foot. Walked into

the plantations with Anne and Anne Russell. A thought strikes me,

alluding to this period of the year. People say that the whole human

frame in all its parts and divisions is gradually in the act of decaying

and renewing. What a curious timepiece it would be that could indicate

to us the moment this gradual and insensible change had so completely

taken place, that no atom was left of the original person who had

existed at a certain period, but there existed in his stead another

person having the same limbs, thews, and sinews, the same face and

lineaments, the same consciousness--a new ship built on an old plank--a

pair of transmigrated stockings, like those of Sir John Cutler,[107]

all green silk, without one thread of the original black silk left!

Singular--to be at once another and the same.

_January_ 2.--Weather clearing up in Edinburgh once more, and all will,

I believe, do well. I am pressed to get on with _Woodstock_, and must

try. I wish I could open a good vein of interest which would breathe

freely. I must take my old way, and write myself into good-humour with

my task. It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back, and

aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these

cold sinkings of the heart. All men I suppose do, less or more. They are

like the sensation of a sailor when the ship is cleared for action, and

all are at their places--gloomy enough; but the first broadside puts all

to rights. Dined at Huntly Burn with the Fergusons _en masse_.

_January_ 3.--Promises a fair day, and I think the progress of my

labours will afford me a little exercise, which I greatly need to help

off the calomel feeling. Walked with Colonel Russell from eleven till

two--the first good day's exercise I have had since coming here. We went

through all the Terrace, the Roman Planting,[108] over by the Stiel and

Haxellcleuch, and so by the Rhymer's Glen to Chiefswood,[109] which gave

my heart a twinge, so disconsolate it seemed. Yet all is for the best.

Called at Huntly Burn, and shook hands with Sir Adam and his Lady just

going off. When I returned, signed the bond for £10,000, which will

disencumber me of all pressing claims;[110] when I get forward W----k

and Nap. there will be £12,000 and upwards, and I hope to add £3000

against this time next year, or the devil must hold the dice. J.B.

writes me seriously on the carelessness of my style. I do not think I am

more careless than usual; but I dare say he is right. I will be more

cautious.

_January_ 4.--Despatched the deed yesterday executed. Mr. and Mrs.

Skene, my excellent friends, came to us from Edinburgh. Skene,

distinguished for his attainments as a draughtsman, and for his highly

gentlemanlike feelings and character, is Laird of Rubislaw, near

Aberdeen. Having had an elder brother, his education was somewhat

neglected in early life, against which disadvantage he made a most

gallant [fight], exerting himself much to obtain those accomplishments

which he has since possessed. Admirable in all exercises, there entered

a good deal of the cavalier into his early character. Of late he has

given himself much to the study of antiquities. His wife, a most

excellent person, was tenderly fond of Sophia. They bring so much

old-fashioned kindness and good-humour with them, besides the

recollections of other times, that they must be always welcome guests.

Letter from Mr. Scrope,[111] announcing a visit.

_January_ 5.--Got the desired accommodation with Coutts, which will put

J.B. quite straight, but am a little anxious still about Constable. He

has immense stock, to be sure, and most valuable, but he may have

sacrifices to make to convert a large proportion of it into ready money.

The accounts from London are most disastrous. Many wealthy persons

totally ruined, and many, many more have been obliged to purchase their

safety at a price they will feel all their lives. I do not hear things

are so bad in Edinburgh; and J.B.'s business has been transacted by the

banks with liberality.

Colonel Russell told us last night that the last of the Moguls, a

descendant of Kubla-Khan, though having no more power than his effigies

at the back of a set of playing-cards, refused to meet Lord Hastings,

because the Governor-General would not agree to remain standing in his

presence. Pretty well for the blood of Timur in these degenerate days!

Much alarmed. I had walked till twelve with Skene and Col. Russell, and

then sat down to my work. To my horror and surprise I could neither

write nor spell, but put down one word for another, and wrote nonsense.

I was much overpowered at the same time, and could not conceive the

reason. I fell asleep, however, in my chair, and slept for two hours. On

waking my head was clearer, and I began to recollect that last night I

had taken the anodyne left for the purpose by Clarkson, and being

disturbed in the course of the night, I had not slept it off.

Obliged to give up writing to-day--read Pepys instead. The Scotts of

Harden were to have dined, but sent an apology,--storm coming on.

Russells left us this morning to go to Haining.

_January 6_.--This seems to be a feeding storm, coming on by little and

little. Wrought all day, and dined quiet. My disorder is wearing off,

and the quiet society of the Skenes suits with my present humour. I

really thought I was in for some very bad illness. Curious expression of

an Indian-born boy just come from Bengal, a son of my cousin George

Swinton. The child saw a hare run across the fields, and exclaimed,

"See, there is a little tiger!"

_January_ 7, _Sunday_.--Knight, a young artist, son of the performer,

came to paint my picture at the request of Terry. This is very far from

being agreeable, as I submitted to this distressing state of constraint

last year to Newton, at request of Lockhart; to Leslie at request of my

American friend;[112] to Wilkie, for his picture of the King's arrival

at Holyrood House; and some one besides. I am as tired of the operation

as old Maida, who had been so often sketched that he got up and went

away with signs of loathing whenever he saw an artist unfurl his paper

and handle his brushes. But this young man is civil and modest; and I

have agreed he shall sit in the room while I work, and take the best

likeness he can, without compelling me into fixed attitudes or the

yawning fatigues of an actual sitting. I think, if he has talent, he may

do more my way than in the customary mode; at least I can't have the

hang-dog look which the unfortunate Theseus has who is doomed to sit for

what seems an eternity.[113]

I wrought till two o'clock--indeed till I was almost nervous with

correcting and scribbling. I then walked, or rather was dragged, through

the snow by Tom Purdie, while Skene accompanied. What a blessing there

is in a man like Tom, whom no familiarity can spoil, whom you may scold

and praise and joke with, knowing the quality of the man is unalterable

in his love and reverence to his master. Use an ordinary servant in the

same way and he will be your master in a month. We should thank God for

the snow as well as summer flowers. This brushing exercise has put all

my nerves into tone again, which were really jarred with fatigue until

my very backbone seemed breaking. This comes of trying to do too much.

J.B.'s news are as good as possible.--Prudence, prudence, and all will

do excellently.

_January_ 8.--Frost and snow still. Write to excuse myself from

attending the funeral of my aunt, Mrs. Curle, which takes place

to-morrow at Kelso. She was a woman of the old Sandy-Knowe breed, with

the strong sense, high principle, and indifferent temper which belonged

to my father's family. She lived with great credit on a moderate income,

and, I believe, gave away a great deal of it.[114]

_January_ 9.--Mathews the comedian and his son came to spend a day at

Abbotsford. The last is a clever young man, with much of his father's

talent for mimicry. Rather forward though.[115] Mr. Scrope also came

out, which fills our house.

_January_ 10.--Bodily health, the mainspring of the microcosm, seems

quite restored. No more flinching or nervous fits, but the sound mind in

the sound body. What poor things does a fever-fit or an overflowing of

the bile make of the masters of creation!

The snow begins to fall thick this morning--

"The landlord then aloud did say,

As how he wished they would go away."

To have our friends shut up here would be rather too much of a good

thing.

The day cleared up and was very pleasant. Had a good walk and looked at

the curling. Mr. Mathews made himself very amusing in the evening. He

has the good-nature to show his accomplishments without pressing, and

without the appearance of feeling pain. On the contrary, I dare say he

enjoys the pleasure he communicates.

_January_ 11.--I got proof-sheets, in which it seems I have repeated a

whole passage of history which had been told before. James is in an

awful stew, and I cannot blame him; but then he should consider the

_hyoscyamus_ which I was taking, and the anxious botheration about the

money-market. However, as Chaucer says:--

"There is na workeman

That can bothe worken wel and hastilie;

This must be done at leisure parfitly."[116]

_January_ 12.--Mathews last night gave us a very perfect imitation of

old Cumberland, who carried the poetic jealousy and irritability further

than any man I ever saw. He was a great flatterer too, the old rogue.

Will Erskine used to admire him. I think he wanted originality. A very

high-bred man in point of manners in society.

My little artist, Knight, gets on better with his portrait--the features

are, however, too pinched, I think.

Upon the whole, the days pass pleasantly enough--work till one or two,

then an hour or two's walk in the snow, then lighter work, or reading.

Late dinner, and singing or chat in the evening. Mathews has really all

the will, as well as the talent, to be amusing. He confirms my idea of

ventriloquism (which is an absurd word), as being merely the art of

imitating sounds at a greater or less distance, assisted by some little

points of trick to influence the imagination of the audience--the vulgar

idea of a peculiar organisation (beyond fineness of ear and of

utterance) is nonsense.

_January_ 13.--Our party are about to disperse--

"Like youthful steers unyoked, east, north, and south."[117]

I am not sorry, being one of those whom too much mirth always inclines

to sadness. The missing so many of my own family, together with the

serious inconveniences to which I have been exposed, gave me at present

a desire to be alone. The Skenes return to Edinburgh, so does Mr.

Scrope--_item_, the little artist; Mathews to Newcastle; his son to

Liverpool. So _exeunt omnes._[118]

Mathews assures me that Sheridan was generally very dull in society, and

sate sullen and silent, swallowing glass after glass, rather a hindrance

than a help. But there was a time when he broke out with a resumption of

what had been going on, done with great force, and generally attacking

some person in the company, or some opinion which he had expressed. I

never saw Sheridan but in large parties. He had a Bardolph countenance,

with heavy features, but his eye possessed the most distinguished

brilliancy. Mathews says it is very simple in Tom Moore to admire how

Sheridan came by the means of paying the price of Drury Lane Theatre,

when all the world knows he never paid it at all; and that Lacy, who

sold it, was reduced to want by his breach of faith.[119] Dined quiet

with Anne, Lady Scott, and Gordon.

_January_ 14.--An odd mysterious letter from Constable, who is gone post

to London, to put something to rights which is wrong betwixt them, their

banker, and another moneyed friend. It strikes me to be that sort of

letter which I have seen men write when they are desirous that their

disagreeable intelligence should be rather apprehended than avowed. I

thought he had been in London a fortnight ago, disposing of property to

meet this exigence, and so I think he should. Well, I must have

patience. But these terrors and frights are truly annoying. Luckily the

funny people are gone, and I shall not have the task of grinning when I

am serious enough. Dined as yesterday.

A letter from J.B. mentioning Constable's journey, but without

expressing much, if any, apprehension. He knows C. well, and saw him

before his departure, and makes no doubt of his being able easily to

extricate whatever may be entangled. I will not, therefore, make myself

uneasy. I can help doing so surely, if I will. At least, I have given up

cigars since the year began, and have now no wish to return to the

habit, as it is called. I see no reason why one should not be able to

vanquish, with God's assistance, these noxious thoughts which foretell

evil but cannot remedy it.

_January_ 15.--Like yesterday, a hard frost. Thermometer at 10; water in

my dressing-room frozen to flint; yet I had a fine walk yesterday, the

sun dancing delightfully on "grim Nature's visage hoar."[120] Were it

not the plague of being dragged along by another person, I should like

such weather as well as summer; but having Tom Purdie to do this office

reconciles me to it. _I cannot cleik with John_, as old Mrs. Mure [of

Caldwell] used to say. I mean, that an ordinary menial servant thus

hooked to your side reminds me of the twin bodies mentioned by

Pitscottie, being two trunks on the same waist and legs. One died before

the other, and remained a dead burden on the back of its companion.[121]

Such is close union with a person whom you cannot well converse with,

and whose presence is yet indispensable to your getting on. An actual

companion, whether humble or your equal, is still worse. But Tom Purdie

is just the thing, kneaded up between the friend and servant, as well as

Uncle Toby's bowling-green between sand and clay. You are certain he is

proud as well as patient under his burthen, and you are under no more

constraint than with a pony. I must ride him to-day if the weather holds

up. Meantime I will correct that curious fellow Pepys' Diary,--I mean

the article I have made of it for the _Quarterly_.

_Edinburgh, January_ 16.--Came through cold roads to as cold news. Hurst

and Robinson have suffered a bill of £1000 to come back upon Constable,

which I suppose infers the ruin of both houses. We shall soon see.

Constable, it seems, who was to have set off in the last week of

December, dawdled here till in all human probability his going or

staying became a matter of mighty little consequence. He could not be

there till Monday night, and his resources must have come too late.

Dined with the Skenes.[122]

_January_ 17.--James Ballantyne this morning--good honest fellow, with a

visage as black as the crook.[123] He hopes no salvation; has indeed

taken measures to stop. It is hard, after having fought such a battle.

Have apologised for not attending the Royal Society Club, who have a

_gaudeamus_ on this day, and seemed to count much on my being the

preses.

My old acquaintance, Miss Elizabeth Clerk, sister of Willie, died

suddenly. I cannot choose but wish it had been S.W.S., and yet the

feeling is unmanly. I have Anne, my wife, and Charles to look after. I

felt rather sneaking as I came home from the Parliament House--felt as

if I were liable _monstrari digito_ in no very pleasant way. But this

must be borne _cum caeteris_; and, thank God, however uncomfortable, I

do not feel despondent.

I have seen Cadell, Ballantyne, and Hogarth. All advise me to execute a

trust of my property for payment of my obligations. So does John

Gibson,[124] and so I resolve to do. My wife and daughter are gloomy,

but yet patient. I trust by my hold on the works to make it every man's

interest to be very gentle with me. Cadell makes it plain that by

prudence they will, in six months, realise £20,000, which can be

attainable by no effort of their own.

_January_ 18.--He that sleeps too long in the morning, let him borrow

the pillow of a debtor. So says the Spaniard, and so say I. I had of

course an indifferent night of it. I wish these two days were over; but

the worst _is_ over. The Bank of Scotland has behaved very well;

expressing a resolution to serve Constable's house and me to the

uttermost; but as no one can say to what extent Hurst and Robinson's

failure may go, borrowing would but linger it out.

_January_ 19.--During yesterday I received formal visits from my

friends, Skene and Colin Mackenzie (who, I am glad to see, looks well),

with every offer of service. The Royal Bank also sent Sir John Hope and

Sir Henry Jardine[125] to offer to comply with my wishes. The Advocate

came on the same errand. But I gave all the same answer--that my

intention was to put the whole into the hands of a trustee, and to be

contented with the event, and that all I had to ask was time to do so,

and to extricate my affairs. I was assured of every accommodation in

this way. From all quarters I have had the same kindness. Letters from

Constable and Robinson have arrived. The last persist in saying they

will pay all and everybody. They say, moreover, in a postscript, that

had Constable been in town ten days sooner, all would have been well.

When I saw him on 24th December, he proposed starting in three days, but

dallied, God knows why, in a kind of infatuation, I think, till things

had got irretrievably wrong. There would have been no want of support

then, and his stock under his own management would have made a return

immensely greater than it can under any other. _Now_ I fear the loss

must be great, as his fall will involve many of the country dealers who

traded with him.

I feel quite composed and determined to labour. There is no remedy. I

_guess_ (as Mathews makes his Yankees say) that we shall not be troubled

with visitors, and I _calculate_ that I will not go out at all; so what

can I do better than labour? Even yesterday I went about making notes on

_Waverley_, according to Constable's plan. It will do good one day.

To-day, when I lock this volume, I go to W[oodstock]. Heigho!

Knight came to stare at me to complete his portrait. He must have read a

tragic page, compared to what he saw at Abbotsford.[126]

We dined of course at home, and before and after dinner I finished about

twenty printed pages of _Woodstock_, but to what effect others must

judge. A painful scene after dinner, and another after supper,

endeavouring to convince these poor dear creatures that they must not

look for miracles, but consider the misfortune as certain, and only to

be lessened by patience and labour.

_January_ 20.--Indifferent night--very bilious, which may be want of

exercise. A letter from Sir J. Sinclair, whose absurd vanity bids him

thrust his finger into every man's pie, proposing that Hurst and

Robinson should sell their prints, of which he says they have a large

collection, by way of lottery like Boydell.

"In scenes like these which break our heart

Comes Punch, like you and----"

_Mais pourtant, cultivons notre jardin_. The public favour is my only

lottery. I have long enjoyed the foremost prize, and something in my

breast tells me my evil genius will not overwhelm me if I stand by

myself. Why should I not? I have no enemies--many attached friends. The

popular ascendency which I have maintained is of the kind which is

rather improved by frequent appearances before the public. In fact,

critics may say what they will, but "_hain_ your reputation, and _tyne_

your reputation," is a true proverb.[127]

Sir William Forbes called--the same kind, honest friend as ever, with

all offers of assistance,[128] etc. etc. All anxious to serve me, and

careless about their own risk of loss. And these are the cold, hard,

money-making men whose questions and control I apprehended.

Lord Chief Commissioner Adam also came to see me, and the meeting,

though pleasing, was melancholy. It is the first time we have met since

the _break up_ of his hopes in the death of his eldest son on his return

from India, where he was Chief in Council and highly esteemed.[129] The

Commissioner is not a very early friend of mine, for I scarce knew him

till his settlement in Scotland with his present office.[130] But I have

since lived much with him, and taken kindly to him as one of the most

pleasant, kind-hearted, benevolent, and pleasing men I have ever known.

It is high treason among the Tories to express regard for him, or

respect for the Jury Court in which he presides. I was against that

experiment as much as any one. But it is an experiment, and the

establishment (which the fools will not perceive) is the only thing

which I see likely to give some prospects of ambition to our bar, which

has been otherwise so much diminished. As for the Chief Commissioner, I

dare say he jobs, as all other people of consequence do, in elections,

and so forth. But he is the personal friend of the King, and the decided

enemy of whatever strikes at the constitutional rights of the Monarch.

Besides, I love him for the various changes which he has endured through

life, and which have been so great as to make him entitled to be

regarded in one point of view as the most fortunate--in the other, the

most unfortunate--man in the world. He has gained and lost two fortunes

by the same good luck, and the same rash confidence, which raised, and

now threatens, my _peculium_. And his quiet, honourable, and generous

submission under circumstances more painful than mine,--for the loss of

world's wealth was to him aggravated by the death of his youngest and

darling son in the West Indies,--furnished me at the time and now with a

noble example. So the Tories and Whigs may go be d----d together, as

names that have disturbed old Scotland, and torn asunder the most kindly

feelings since the first day they were invented. Yes, ----- them, they

are spells to rouse all our angry passions, and I dare say,

notwithstanding the opinion of my private and calm moments, I will open

on the cry again so soon as something occurs to chafe my mood; and yet,

God knows, I would fight in honourable contest with word or blow for my

political opinions; but I cannot permit that strife to "mix its waters

with my daily meal," those waters of bitterness which poison all mutual

love and confidence betwixt the well-disposed on either side, and

prevent them, if need were, from making mutual concessions and balancing

the constitution against the ultras of both parties. The good man seems

something broken by these afflictions.

_January_ 21.--Susannah in _Tristram Shandy_ thinks death is best met in

bed. I am sure trouble and vexation are not. The watches of the night

pass wearily when disturbed by fruitless regrets and disagreeable

anticipations. But let it pass.

"Well, Goodman Time, or blunt, or keen,

Move thou quick, or take thy leisure,

Longest day will have its e'en,

Weariest life but treads a measure."

I have seen Cadell, who is very much downcast for the risk of their

copyrights being thrown away by a hasty sale. I suggested that if they

went very cheap, some means might be fallen on to keep up their value or

purchase them in. I fear the split betwixt Constable and Cadell will

render impossible what might otherwise be hopeful enough. It is the

Italian race-horses, I think, which, instead of riders, have spurs tied

to their sides, so as to prick them into a constant gallop. Cadell tells

me their gross profit was sometimes £10,000 a year, but much swallowed

up with expenses, and his partner's draughts, which came to £4000

yearly. What there is to show for this, God knows. Constable's apparent

expenses were very much within bounds.

Colin Mackenzie entered, and with his usual kindness engages to use his

influence to recommend some moderate proceeding to Constable's

creditors, such as may permit him to go on and turn that species of

property to account, which no man alive can manage so well as he.

Followed Mr. Gibson with a most melancholy tale. Things are so much

worse with Constable than I apprehended that I shall neither save

Abbotsford nor anything else. Naked we entered the world, and naked we

leave it--blessed be the name of the Lord!

_January_ 22.--I feel neither dishonoured nor broken down by the

bad--now really bad news I have received. I have walked my last on the

domains I have planted--sate the last time in the halls I have built.

But death would have taken them from me if misfortune had spared them.

My poor people whom I loved so well! There is just another die to turn

up against me in this run of ill-luck; _i.e._ if I should break my magic

wand in the fall from this elephant, and lose my popularity with my

fortune. Then _Woodstock_ and _Bony_ may both go to the paper-maker, and

I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee, and

intoxicate the brain another way. In prospect of absolute ruin, I wonder

if they would let me leave the Court of Session. I would like, methinks,

to go abroad,

"And lay my bones far from the _Tweed_."

But I find my eyes moistening, and that will not do. I will not yield

without a fight for it. It is odd, when I set myself to work _doggedly_,

as Dr. Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man that I ever was,

neither low-spirited nor _distrait_. In prosperous times I have

sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to

me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost

recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had troubled it in his passage.

Poor Mr. Pole the harper sent to offer me £500 or £600, probably his

all.[131] There is much good in the world, after all. But I will

involve no friend, either rich or poor. My own right hand shall do

it--else will I be _done_ in the slang language, and _undone_ in common

parlance.

I am glad that, beyond my own family, who are, excepting L.S., young and

able to bear sorrow, of which this is the first taste to some of them,

most of the hearts are past aching which would have once been

inconsolable on this occasion. I do not mean that many will not

seriously regret, and some perhaps lament, my misfortunes. But my dear

mother, my almost sister, Christy R[utherfor]d,[132] poor Will

Erskine--these would have been mourners indeed.

Well--exertion--exertion. O Invention, rouse thyself! May man be kind!

May God be propitious! The worst is, I never quite know when I am right

or wrong; and Ballantyne, who does know in some degree, will fear to

tell me. Lockhart would be worth gold just now, but he too would be too

diffident to speak broad out. All my hope is in the continued indulgence

of the public. I have a funeral-letter to the burial of the Chevalier

Yelin, a foreigner of learning and talent, who has died at the Royal

Hotel. He wished to be introduced to me, and was to have read a paper

before the Royal Society when this introduction was to have taken place.

I was not at the Society that evening, and the poor gentleman was taken

ill at the meeting and unable to proceed. He went to his bed and never

rose again; and now his funeral will be the first public place I shall

appear at. He dead, and I ruined; this is what you call a meeting.[133]

_January_ 23.--Slept ill, not having been abroad these eight

days--_splendida bilis_. Then a dead sleep in the morning, and when the

awakening comes, a strong feeling how well I could dispense with it for

once and for ever. This passes away, however, as better and more dutiful

thoughts arise in my mind. I know not if my imagination has flagged;

probably it has; but at least my powers of labour have not diminished

during the last melancholy week. On Monday and Tuesday my exertions were

suspended. Since Wednesday inclusive I have written thirty-eight of my

close manuscript pages, of which seventy make a volume of the usual

Novel size.

Wrote till twelve A.M., finishing half of what I call a good day's

work--ten pages of print, or rather twelve. Then walked in Princes

Street pleasure-grounds with good Samaritan James Skene, the only one

among my numerous friends who can properly be termed _amicus curarum

mearum,_ others being too busy or too gay, and several being estranged

by habit.[134]

The walks have been conducted on the whole with much taste, though Skene

has undergone much criticism, the usual reward of public exertions, on

account of his plans. It is singular to walk close beneath the grim old

Castle, and to think what scenes it must have seen, and how many

generations of three score and ten have risen and passed away. It is a

place to cure one of too much sensation over earthly subjects of

mutation. My wife and girl's tongues are chatting in a lively manner in

the drawing-room. It does me good to hear them.

_January_ 24.--Constable came yesterday, and saw me for half an hour. He

seemed irritable, but kept his temper under command. Was a little

shocked when I intimated that I was disposed to regard the present works

in progress as my own. I think I saw two things:--(1) That he is

desirous to return into the management of his own affairs without

Cadell, if he can. (2) That he relies on my connection as the way of

helping us out of the slough. Indeed he said he was ruined utterly

without my countenance. I certainly will befriend him if I can, but

Constable without Cadell is like getting the clock without the

pendulum--the one having the ingenuity, the other the caution of the

business. I will see my way before making any bargain, and I will help

them, I am sure, if I can, without endangering my last cast for freedom.

Worked out my task yesterday. My kind friend Mrs. Coutts has got the

cadet-ship for Pringle Shortreed, in which he was peculiarly interested.

I went to the Court for the first time to-day, and, like the man with

the large nose, thought everybody was thinking of me and my mishaps.

Many were, undoubtedly, and all rather regrettingly; some obviously

affected. It is singular to see the difference of men's manner whilst

they strive to be kind or civil in their way of addressing me. Some

smile as they wish me good-day, as if to say, "Think nothing about it,

my lad; it is quite out of our thoughts." Others greeted me with the

affected gravity which one sees and despises at a funeral. The best

bred--all, I believe, meaning equally well--just shook hands and went

on. A foolish puff in the papers, calling on men and gods to assist a

popular author, who, having choused the public of many thousands, had

not the sense to keep wealth when he had it. If I am hard pressed, and

measures used against me, I must use all means of legal defence, and

subscribe myself bankrupt in a petition for sequestration. It is the

course I would have advised a client to take, and would have the effect

of saving my land, which is secured by my son's contract of marriage. I

might save my library, etc., by assistance of friends, and bid my

creditors defiance. But for this I would, in a court of honour, deserve

to lose my spurs. No, if they permit me, I will be their vassal for

life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what

may sell for such) to make good my engagements, not to enrich myself.

And this from no reluctance to allow myself to be called the Insolvent,

which I probably am, but because I will not put out of the [power] of my

creditors the resources, mental or literary, which yet remain to me.

Went to the funeral of Chevalier Yelin, the literary foreigner mentioned

on 22d. How many and how various are the ways of affliction! Here is

this poor man dying at a distance from home, his proud heart broken, his

wife and family anxiously expecting letters, and doomed only to learn

they have lost a husband and father for ever. He lies buried on the

Calton Hill, near learned and scientific dust--the graves of David Hume

and John Playfair being side by side.

_January_ 25.--Anne is ill this morning. May God help us! If it should

prove serious, as I have known it in such cases, where am I to find

courage or comfort? A thought has struck me--Can we do nothing for

creditors with the goblin drama, called _Fortunes of Devorgoil_? Could

it not be added to _Woodstock_ as a fourth volume? Terry refused a gift

of it, but he was quite and entirely wrong; it is not good, but it may

be made so. Poor Will Erskine liked it much.[135] Gave my wife her £12

allowance. £24 to last till Wednesday fortnight. _January_ 26.--Spoke

to J.B. last night about _Devorgoil_, who does not seem to relish the

proposal, alleging the comparative failure of _Halidon Hill_. Ay, says

Self-Conceit, but he has not read it; and when he does, it is the sort

of wild fanciful work betwixt heaven and earth, which men of solid parts

do not estimate. Pepys thought Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_

the most silly play he had ever seen, and Pepys was probably judging on

the same grounds with J.B., though presumptuous enough to form

conclusions against a very different work from any of mine. How if I

send it to Lockhart by and by?

I called to-day at Constable's; both partners seemed secure that Hurst

and Robinson were to go on and pay. Strange that they should have

stopped. Constable very anxious to have husbanding of the books. I told

him the truth that I would be glad to have his assistance, and that he

should have the benefit of the agency, but that he was not to consider

past transactions as a rule for selling them in future, since I must

needs make the most out of the labours I could: _item_, that I, or

whoever might act for me, would of course, after what has happened, look

especially to the security. He said if Hurst and Robinson were to go on,

bank notes would be laid down. I conceive indeed that they would take

_Woodstock_ and _Napoleon_ almost at loss rather than break the

connection in the public eye. Sir William Arbuthnot and Mr. Kinnear were

very kind. But _cui bono_?[136]

Gibson comes with a joyful face announcing all the creditors had

unanimously agreed to a private trust. This is handsome and

confidential, and must warm my best efforts to get them out of the

scrape. I will not doubt--to doubt is to lose. Sir William Forbes took

the chair, and behaved as he has ever done, with the generosity of

ancient faith and early friendship. They[137] are deeper concerned than

most. In what scenes have Sir William and I not borne share

together--desperate, and almost bloody affrays, rivalries, deep

drinking-matches, and, finally, with the kindest feelings on both sides,

somewhat separated by his retiring much within the bosom of his family,

and I moving little beyond mine. It is fated our planets should cross

though, and that at the periods most interesting for me. Down--down--a

hundred thoughts.

Jane Russell drank tea with us.

I hope to sleep better to-night. If I do not I shall get ill, and then I

cannot keep my engagements. Is it not odd? I can command my eyes to be

awake when toil and weariness sit on my eyelids, but to draw the curtain

of oblivion is beyond my power. I remember some of the wild Buccaneers,

in their impiety, succeeded pretty well by shutting hatches and burning

brimstone and assafœtida in making a tolerable imitation of _hell_--but

the pirates' _heaven_ was a wretched affair. It is one of the worst

things about this system of ours, that it is a hundred times more easy

to inflict pain than to create pleasure.

_January_ 27.--Slept better and less bilious, owing doubtless to the

fatigue of the preceding night, and the more comfortable news. I drew my

salaries of various kinds amounting to £300 and upwards and sent, with

John Gibson's consent, £200 to pay off things at Abbotsford which must

be paid. Wrote Laidlaw with the money, directing him to make all

preparations for reduction.[138] Anne ill of rheumatism: I believe

caught cold by vexation and exposing herself to bad weather.

The Celtic Society present me with the most splendid broadsword I ever

saw; a beautiful piece of art, and a most noble weapon. Honourable Mr.

Stuart (second son of the Earl of Moray), General Graham Stirling, and

MacDougal, attended as a committee to present it. This was very kind of

my friends the Celts, with whom I have had so many merry meetings. It

will be a rare legacy to Walter;--for myself, good lack! it is like Lady

Dowager Don's prize in a lottery of hardware; she--a venerable lady who

always wore a haunch-hoop, silk négligé, and triple ruffles at the

elbow--having the luck to gain a pair of silver spurs and a whip to

correspond.

_January_ 28.--Ballantyne and Cadell wish that Mr. Alex. Cowan should be

Constable's Trustee instead of J.B.'s. Gibson is determined to hold by

Cowan. I will not interfere, although I think Cowan's services might do

us more good as Constable's Trustee than as our own, but I will not

begin with thwarting the managers of my affairs, or even exerting strong

influence; it is not fair. These last four or five days I have wrought

little; to-day I set on the steam and ply my paddles.

_January_ 29.--The proofs of vol. i.[139] came so thick in yesterday

that much was not done. But I began to be hard at work to-day, and must

not _gurnalise_ much.

Mr. Jollie, who is to be my trustee, in conjunction with Gibson, came to

see me:--a, pleasant and good-humoured man, and has high reputation as a

man of business. I told him, and I will keep my word, that he would at

least have no trouble by my interfering and thwarting their management,

which is the not unfrequent case of trusters and trustees.[140]

Constable's business seems unintelligible. No man thought the house

worth less than £150,000. Constable told me when he was making his will

that he was worth £80,000. Great profits on almost all the adventures.

No bad speculations--yet neither stock nor debt to show: Constable might

have eaten up his share; but Cadell was very frugal. No doubt trading

almost entirely on accommodation is dreadfully expensive.[141]

_January_ 30.--_False delicacy_. Mr. Gibson, Mr. Cowan, Mr. J.B., were

with me last night to talk over important matters, and suggest an

individual for a certain highly confidential situation. I was led to

mention a person of whom I knew nothing but that he was an honest and

intelligent man. All seemed to acquiesce, and agreed to move the thing

to the party concerned this morning, and so Mr. G. and Mr. C. left me,

when J.B. let out that it was their unanimous opinion that we should be

in great trouble were the individual appointed, from faults of temper,

etc., which would make it difficult to get on with him. With a hearty

curse I hurried J.B. to let them know that I had no partiality for the

man whatever, and only named him because he had been proposed for a

similar situation elsewhere. This is provoking enough, that they would

let me embarrass my affairs with a bad man (an unfit one, I mean)

rather than contradict me. I dare say great men are often used so.

I laboured freely yesterday. The stream rose fast--if clearly, is

another question; but there is bulk for it, at least--about thirty

printed pages.

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

_January_ 31.--There being nothing in the roll to-day, I stay at home

from the Court, and add another day's perfect labour to _Woodstock_,

which is worth five days of snatched intervals, when the current of

thought and invention is broken in upon, and the mind shaken and

diverted from its purpose by a succession of petty interruptions. I have

now no pecuniary provisions to embarrass me, and I think, now the shock

of the discovery is past and over, I am much better off on the whole; I

am as if I had shaken off from my shoulders a great mass of garments,

rich, indeed, but cumbrous, and always more a burden than a comfort. I

am free of an hundred petty public duties imposed on me as a man of

consideration--of the expense of a great hospitality--and, what is

better, of the great waste of time connected with it. I have known, in

my day, all kinds of society, and can pretty well estimate how much or

how little one loses by retiring from all but that which is very

intimate. I sleep and eat, and work as I was wont; and if I could see

those about me as indifferent to the loss of rank as I am, I should be

completely happy. As it is, Time must salve that sore, and to Time I

trust it.

Since the 14th of this month no guest has broken bread in my house save

G.H. Gordon[142] one morning at breakfast. This happened never before

since I had a house of my own. But I have played Abou Hassan long

enough; and if the Caliph came I would turn him back again.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] The parsimonious yet liberal London merchant, whose miserly habits

gave Arbuthnot the materials of the story. See Professor Brown's

_Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, vol i. p. 244, and

Martin Scriblerns, cap. xii., Pope, vol. iv. p. 54, Edin. 1776.

[108] This plantation now covers the remains of an old Roman road from

the Great Camp on the Eildon Hills to the ford below Scott's

house.--J.G.L.

[109] The residence for several years of Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart.

[110] When settling his estate on his eldest son, Sir Walter had

retained the power of burdening it with £10,000 for behoof of his

younger children; he now raised the sum for the assistance of the

struggling firms.--J.G.L. See Dec. 14, 1825.

[111] William Scrope, author of _Days of Deer Stalking_, roy. 8vo, 1839;

and _Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing_, roy. 8vo, 1843; died in his

81st year in 1852. Mr. Lockhart says of this enthusiastic sportsman that

at this time "he had a lease of Lord Somerville's pavilion opposite

Melrose, and lived on terms of affectionate intimacy with Sir Walter

Scott."

[112] Mr. George Ticknor of Boston. He saw much of Scott and his family

in the spring of 1819 in Edinburgh and at Abbotsford; and was again in

Scotland in 1838. Both visits are well described in his journals,

published in Boston in 1876.

Mrs. Lockhart was of opinion that Leslie's portrait of her father was

the best extant, "and nothing equals it except Chantrey's

bust."--Ticknor's _Life_, vol. i. p. 107.

Leslie himself thought Chantrey's was the best of all the portraits.

"The gentle turn of the head, inclined a little forward and down, and

the lurking humour in the eye and about the mouth, are Scott's

own."--_Autobiographical Recollections of Leslie_, edited by Taylor,

vol. i. p. 118.

[113] ... sedet, eternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus ... VIRGIL.--J.G.L.

[114] In a letter of this date to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Thomas Scott,

Sir Walter says:--"Poor aunt Curle died like a Roman, or rather like one

of the Sandy-Knowe bairns, the most stoical race I ever knew. She turned

every one out of the room, and drew her last breath alone. So did my

uncle, Captain Robert Scott, and several others of that family."--J.G.L.

[115] See letter addressed by C.J. Mathews to his mother, in which he

says, "I took particular notice of everything in the room (Sir Walter's

sanctum), and _if he had left me there, should certainly have read all

his notes_." _Memoirs_, edited by Dickens, 2 vols., London, 1879, vol.

i. p. 284.

[116] _Merchant's Tale_, lines 9706-8, slightly altered.

[117] 2 _King Henry IV_., Act iv. Sc. 2.--J.G.L.

[118] "I had long been in the habit of passing the Christmas with Sir

Walter in the country, when he had great pleasure in assembling what he

called 'a fireside party,' where he was always disposed to indulge in

the free and unrestrained outpouring of his cheerful and convivial

disposition. Upon one of these occasions the Comedian Mathews and his

son were at Abbotsford, and most entertaining they were, giving us a

full display of all their varied powers in scenic representations,

narrations, songs, ventriloquism, and frolic of every description, as

well as a string of most amusing anecdote, connected with the

professional adventures of the elder, and the travels of the son, who

seemed as much a genius as his father. He has never appeared on the

stage, although abundantly fit to distinguish himself in that

department, but has taken to the profession of architecture.

Notwithstanding that the snow lay pretty deep on the ground, Sir Walter,

old Mathews, and myself set out with the deerhounds and terriers to have

a large range through the woods and high grounds; and a most amusing

excursion it was, from the difficulties which Mathews, unused to that

sort of scrambling, had to encounter, being also somewhat lame from an

accident he had met with in being thrown out of a gig,--the

good-humoured manner with which each of my two lame companions strove to

get over the bad passes, their jokes upon it, alternately shouting for

my assistance to help them through, and with all the liveliness of their

conversation, as every anecdote which one told was in emulation tried to

be outdone by the other by some incident equally if not more

entertaining,--and it may be well supposed that the healthful exercise

of a walk of this description disposed every one to enjoy the festivity

which was to close the day."--_Mr. Skene's Reminiscences_.

[119] See Moore's _Life of Sheridan_, vol. i. p. 191. This work was

published late in 1825.--J.G.L.

[120] Burns's _Vision_.--J.G.L.

[121] Lindsay's _Chronicles of Scotland_ 2 vols. Edin. 1814, pp. 246-7.

[122] Mr. Skene in his _Reminiscences_ says:--"The family had been at

Abbotsford, and it had long been their practice the day they came to

town to take a family dinner at my house, which had accordingly been

complied with upon the present occasion, and I never had seen Sir Walter

in better spirits or more agreeable. The fatal intimation of his

bankruptcy, however, awaited him at home, and next morning early I was

surprised by a verbal message to come to him as soon as I had got up.

Fearful that he had got a fresh attack of the complaint from which he

had now for some years been free, or that he had been involved in some

quarrel, I went to see him by seven o'clock, and found him already by

candle-light seated at his writing-table, surrounded by papers which he

was examining, holding out his hand to me as I entered, he said, "Skene,

this is the hand of a beggar. Constable has failed, and I am ruined _de

fond en comble_. It's a hard blow, but I must just bear up; the only

thing which wrings me is poor Charlotte and the bairns.""

[123] _Crook_. The chain and hook hanging from the crook-tree over the

fire in Scottish cottages.

[124] [Sir Walter's private law-agent.] Mr. John Gibson, Junr., W.S.,

Mr. James Jollie, W.S., and Mr. Alexander Monypenny, W.S., were the

three gentlemen who ultimately agreed to take charge, as trustees, of

Sir Walter Scott's affairs; and certainly no gentlemen ever acquitted

themselves of such an office in a manner more honourable to themselves,

or more satisfactory to a client and his creditors.--J.G.L. Mr. Gibson

wrote a little volume of _Reminiscences of Scott_, which was published

in 1871. This old friend died in 1879. "In the month of January 1826,"

says Mr. Gibson, "Sir Walter called upon me, and explained how matters

stood with the two houses referred to, adding that he himself was a

partner in one of them--that bills were falling due and dishonoured--and

that some immediate arrangement was indispensably necessary. In such

circumstances, only two modes of proceeding could be thought of--either

that he should avail himself of the Bankrupt Act, and allow his estate

to be sequestrated, or that he should execute a trust conveyance for

behoof of his creditors. The latter course was preferred for various

reasons, but chiefly out of regard for his own feeling."

_Reminiscences_, p. 12. See entry in Journal under Jan. 24.

[125] Sir John Hope of Pinkie and Craighall, 11th Baronet; Sir Henry

Jardine, King's Remembrancer from 1820 to 1837; and Sir William Rae,

Lord Advocate, son of Lord Eskgrove, were all Directors of the Royal

Bank of Scotland.

[126] John Prescott Knight, the young artist referred to, afterwards

R.A., and Secretary to the Academy, wrote (in 1871) to Sir William

Stirling Maxwell, an interesting account of the picture and its

accidental destruction on the very day of Sir Walter's death. _Scott

Exhibition Catalogue_, 4to, Edin. p. 199. Mr. Knight died in 1881.

[127] To _hain_ anything is, _Anglicè_, to deal very carefully,

penuriously about it--_tyne_, to lose. Scott often used to say "hain a

pen and tyne a pen," which is nearer the proverb alluded to.--J.G.L.

[128] The late Sir William Forbes, Baronet, succeeded his father (the

biographer of Beattie) as chief of the head private banking-house in

Edinburgh. Scott's amiable friend died 24th Oct. 1828.--J.G.L.

[129] John Adam, Esq., died on shipboard on his passage homewards from

Calcutta, 4th June 1825.--J.G.L.

[130] The Right Hon. W. Adam of Blairadam, born in 1751. When trial by

Jury in civil cases was introduced into Scotland in 1815, he was made

Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court, which office he held till 1830.

Mr. Lockhart adds (_Life_, vol. v. p. 46): "This most amiable and

venerable gentleman, my dear and kind friend, died at Edinburgh, on the

17th February 1839, in the 89th year of his age. He retained his strong

mental faculties in their perfect vigour to the last days of this long

life, and with them all the warmth of social feelings which had endeared

him to all who were so happy as to have any opportunity of knowing him."

[131] Mr. Pole had long attended Sir Walter Scott's daughters as teacher

of the harp. In the end Scott always spoke of his conduct as the most

affecting circumstance that accompanied his disasters.--J.G.L. For Mr.

Pole's letter see _Life_, vol. viii. p. 205. Mr. Pole went to live in

England and died at Kensington.

[132] Scott's mother's sister. See _Life_, vols. i., iii., v., and vi.

[133] Chevalier Yelin, the friend and travelling companion of Baron

D'Eichthal, was a native of Bavaria. His wife had told him playfully

that he must not leave Scotland without having seen the great bard; and

he prolonged his stay in Edinburgh until Scott's return, hoping to meet

him at the Royal Society on this evening.

[134] On the morning of this day Sir Walter wrote the following note to

his friend:--

"DEAR SKENE,--If you are disposed for a walk in your gardens any time

this morning, I would gladly accompany you for an hour, since keeping

the house so long begins rather to hurt me, and you, who supported the

other day the weight of my body, are perhaps best disposed to endure the

gloom of my mind.--Yours ever, W.S.

"CASTLE STREET, 23 _January_.

"I will call when you please: all hours after twelve are the same to

me."

On his return from this walk, Mr. Skene wrote out his recollections of

the conversation that had taken place. Of his power to rebuild his

shattered fortunes, Scott said, "'But woe's me, I much mistrust my

vigour, for the best of my energies are already expended. You have seen,

my dear Skene, the Roman coursers urged to their speed by a loaded spur

attached to their backs to whet the rusty metal of their ager--ay! it is

a leaden spur indeed, and it goads hard.'

"I added, 'But what do you think, Scott, of the bits of flaming paper

that are pasted on the flanks of the poor jades? If we could but stick

certain small documents on your back, and set fire to them, I think you

might submit for a time to the pricking of the spur.' He laughed, and

said, 'Ay! Ay!--these weary bills, if they were but as the thing that is

not--come, cheer me up with an account of the Roman Carnival.' And,

accordingly, with my endeavour to do so, he seemed as much interested as

if nothing had happened to discompose the usual tenor of his mind, but

still our conversation ever and anon dropt back into the same subject,

in the course of which he said to me, 'Do you know I experience a sort

of determined pleasure in confronting the very worst aspect of this

sudden reverse,--in standing, as it were, in the breach that has

overthrown my fortunes, and saying, Here I stand, at least an honest

man. And God knows, if I have enemies, this I may at least with truth

say, that I have never wittingly given cause of enmity in the whole

course of my life, for even the burnings of political hate seemed to

find nothing in my nature to feed the flame. I am not conscious of

having borne a grudge towards any man, and at this moment of my

overthrow, so help me God, I wish well and feel kindly to every one. And

if I thought that any of my works contained a sentence hurtful to any

one's feelings, I would burn it. I think even my novels (for he did not

disown any of them) are free from that blame.'

"He had been led to make this protestation from my having remarked to

him the singularly general feeling of goodwill and sympathy towards him

which every one was anxious to testify upon the present occasion. The

sentiments of resignation and of cheerful acquiescence in the

dispensation of the Almighty which he expressed were those of a

Christian thankful for the blessings left, and willing, without

ostentation, to do his best. It was really beautiful to see the workings

of a strong and upright mind under the first lash of adversity calmly

reposing upon the consolation afforded by his own integrity and manful

purposes. 'Lately,' he said, 'you saw me under the apprehension of the

decay of my mental faculties, and I confess that I was under mortal fear

when I found myself writing one word for another, and misspelling every

word, but that wore off, and was perhaps occasioned by the effects of

the medicine I had been taking, but have I not reason to be thankful

that that misfortune did not assail me?--Ay! few have more reason to

feel grateful to the Disposer of all events than I have.'"--_Mr. Skene's

Reminiscences._

[135] "The energy with which Sir Walter had set about turning his

resources, both present and past, to immediate account, with a view to

prove to his creditors, with as little delay as possible, that all that

could depend upon himself should be put in operation to retrieve his

affairs, made him often reluctant to quit his study however much he

found himself exhausted. However, the employment served to occupy his

mind, and prevent its brooding over the misfortune which had befallen

him, and joined to the natural contentedness of his disposition

prevented any approach of despondency. 'Here is an old effort of mine to

compose a melo-drama' (showing me one day a bundle of papers which he

had found in his repositories). 'This trifle would have been long ago

destroyed had it not been for our poor friend Kinnedder, who arrested my

hand as he thought it not bad, and for his sake it was kept. I have just

read it over, and, do you know, with some satisfaction. Faith, I have

known many worse things make their way very well in the world, so, God

willing, it shall e'en see the light, if it can do aught in the hour of

need to help the hand that fashioned it.' Upon asking the name of this

production, he said, 'I suspect I must change it, having already

forestalled it by the _Fortunes of Nigel_. I had called it the _Fortunes

of Devorgoil_, but we must not begin to double up in that way, for if

you leave anything hanging loose, you may be sure that some malicious

devil will tug at it. I think I shall call it _The Doom of Devorgoil_.

It will make a volume of itself, and I do not see why it should not come

out by particular desire as a fourth volume to _Woodstock_. They have

some sort of connection, and it would not be a difficult matter to bind

the connection a little closer. As the market goes, I have no doubt of

the Bibliopolist pronouncing it worth £1000, or £1500.' I asked him if

he meant it for the stage. 'No, no; the stage is a sorry job, that

course will not do for these hard days; besides, there is too much

machinery in the piece for the stage.' I observed that I was not sure of

that, for pageant and machinery was the order of the day, and had

Shakespeare been of this date he might have been left to die a

deer-stealer. 'Well, then, with all my heart, if they can get the beast

to lead or to drive, they may bring it on the stage if they like. It is

a sort of goblin tale, and so was the _Castle Spectre_, which had its

run.' I asked him if the _Castle Spectre_ had yielded Lewis much.

'Little of that, in fact to its author absolutely nothing, and yet its

merits ought to have brought something handsome to poor Mat. But

Sheridan, then manager, you know, generally paid jokes instead of cash,

and the joke that poor Mat got was, after all, not a bad one. Have you

heard it? Don't let me tell you a story you know.' As I had not heard

it, he proceeded. 'Well, they were disputing about something, and Lewis

had clenched his argument by proposing to lay a bet about it. I shall

lay what you ought long ago to have paid me for my _Castle, Spectre_.'

"No, no, Mat," said Sheridan, "I never lay large bets; but come, I will

bet a trifle with you--I'll bet what the _Castle Spectre_ was worth."

Now Constable managed differently; he paid well and promptly, but devil

take him, it was all spectral together. Moonshine and no merriment. He

sowed my field with one hand, and as liberally scattered the tares with

the other.'"--_Mr. Skene's Reminiscences._

[136] These two gentlemen were at this time Directors of the Bank of

Scotland.

[137] Sir W. Forbes and Co.'s Banking House.

[138] An extract from what is probably the letter to Laidlaw written on

this day was printed in _Chambers's Journal_ for July 1845. The italics

are the editor's:--

"For you, my dear friend, we must part--that is, as laird and

factor--and it rejoices me to think that your patience and endurance,

which set me so good an example, are like to bring round better days.

You never flattered my prosperity, and in my adversity it is not the

least painful consideration that I cannot any longer be useful to you.

But Kaeside, I hope, will still be your residence, and I will have the

advantage of your company and advice, and probably your service as

amanuensis. Observe, I am not in indigence, though no longer in

affluence, and if I am to exert myself in the common behalf, I must have

honorable and easy means of life, although it will be my inclination to

observe the most strict privacy, the better to save expense, and also

time. Lady Scott's spirits were affected at first, but she is getting

better. _For myself, I feel_ _like the Eildon Hills--quite firm, though

a little cloudy._

"I do not dislike the path which lies before me. I have seen all that

society can show, and enjoyed all that wealth can give me, and I am

satisfied much is vanity, if not vexation of spirit. What can I say

more, except that I will write to you the instant I know what is to be

done."

[139] _Life of Bonaparte_. (?)

[140] "In the management of his Trust," Mr. Gibson remarks, "everything

went on harmoniously--the chief labour devolving upon myself, but my

co-Trustees giving their valuable aid and advice when

required."--_Reminiscences_, p. 16.

[141] The total liabilities of the three firms amounted in round numbers

to nearly half-a-million sterling. Sir Walter, as the partner of

Ballantyne and Co., was held responsible for about £130,000;--this large

sum was ultimately paid in full by Scott and his representatives. The

other two firms paid their creditors about 10 per cent, of the amounts

due. It must be kept in mind, however, as far as Constable's house was

concerned, that their property appears to have been foolishly sacrificed

by forced sales of copyrights and stock.

[142] Mr. Gordon was at this time Scott's amanuensis; he _copied_, that

is to say, the MS. for press.--J.G.L.

FEBRUARY.

_February_ 1.--A most generous letter (though not more so than I

expected) from Walter and Jane, offering to interpose with their

fortune, etc. God Almighty forbid! that were too unnatural in me to

accept, though dutiful and affectionate in them to offer. They talk of

India still. With my damaged fortune I cannot help them to remain by

exchange, and so forth. He expects, if they go, to go out eldest

Captain, when, by staying two or three years, he will get the step of

Major. His whole thoughts are with his profession, and I understand that

when you quit or exchange, when a regiment goes on distant or

disagreeable service, you are not accounted as serious in your

profession; God send what is for the best! Remitted Charles a bill for

£40--£35 advance at Christmas makes £75. He must be frugal.

Attended the Court, and saw J.B. and Cadell as I returned. Both very

gloomy. Came home to work, etc., about two.

_February_ 2.--An odd visit this morning from Miss Jane Bell of North

Shields, whose law-suit with a Methodist parson of the name of Hill made

some noise. The worthy divine had in the basest manner interfered to

prevent this lady's marriage by two anonymous letters, in which he

contrived to refer the lover, to whom they were addressed, for further

corroboration to _himself_. The whole imposition makes the subject of a

little pamphlet published by Marshall, Newcastle. The lady ventured for

redress into the thicket of English law--lost one suit--gained another,

with £300 damages, and was ruined. The appearance and person of Miss

Bell are prepossessing. She is about thirty years old, a brunette, with

regular and pleasing features, marked with melancholy,--an enthusiast in

literature, and probably in religion. She had been at Abbotsford to see

me, and made her way to me here, in the vain hope that she could get her

story worked up into a novel; and certainly the thing is capable of

interesting situations. It throws a curious light upon the aristocratic

or rather hieratic influence exercised by the Methodist preachers within

the _connection_, as it is called. Admirable food this would be for the

_Quarterly_, or any other reviewers who might desire to feed fat their

grudge against these sectarians. But there are two reasons against such

a publication. First, it would do the poor sufferer no good. Secondly,

it might hurt the Methodistic connection very much, which I for one

would not like to injure. They have their faults, and are peculiarly

liable to those of hypocrisy, and spiritual ambition, and priestcraft.

On the other hand, they do infinite good, carrying religion into classes

in society where it would scarce be found to penetrate, did it rely

merely upon proof of its doctrines, upon calm reasoning, and upon

rational argument. Methodists add a powerful appeal to the feelings and

passions; and though I believe this is often exaggerated into absolute

enthusiasm, yet I consider upon the whole they do much to keep alive a

sense of religion, and the practice of morality necessarily connected

with it. It is much to the discredit of the Methodist clergy, that when

this calumniator was actually convicted of guilt morally worse than many

men are hanged for, they only degraded him from the _first_ to the

_second_ class of their preachers,--leaving a man who from mere hatred

at Miss Bell's brother, who was a preacher like himself, had proceeded

in such a deep and infamous scheme to ruin the character and destroy the

happiness of an innocent person, in possession of the pulpit, and an

authorised teacher of others. If they believed him innocent they did too

much--if guilty, far too little.[143]

I wrote to my nephew Walter to-day, cautioning him against a little

disposition which he has to satire or _méchanceté_, which may be a great

stumbling-block in his course in life. Otherwise I presage well of him.

He is lieutenant of engineers, with high character for mathematical

science--is acute, very well-mannered, and, I think, good-hearted. He

has seen enough of the world too, to regulate his own course through

life, better than most lads at his age.

_February_ 3.--This is the first morning since my troubles that I felt

at awaking

"I had drunken deep

Of all the blessedness of sleep."[144]

I made not the slightest pause, nor dreamed a single dream, nor even

changed my side. This is a blessing to be grateful for. There is to be a

meeting of the creditors to-day, but I care not for the issue. If they

drag me into the Court, _obtorto collo_, instead of going into this

scheme of arrangement, they would do themselves a great injury, and,

perhaps, eventually do me good, though it would give me much pain. James

Ballantyne is severely critical on what he calls imitations of Mrs.

Radcliffe in _Woodstock_. Many will think with him, yet I am of opinion

he is quite wrong, or, as friend J. F[errier] says, _vrong_[145] In the

first place, I am to look on the mere fact of another author having

treated a subject happily as a bird looks on a potato-bogle which scares

it away from a field otherwise as free to its depredations as any one's

else! In 2d place, I have taken a wide difference: my object is not to

excite fear of supernatural tilings in my reader, but to show the effect

of such fear upon the agents in the story--one a man of sense and

firmness--one a man unhinged by remorse--one a stupid uninquiring

clown--one a learned and worthy, but superstitious divine. In the third

place, the book turns on this hinge, and cannot want it. But I will try

to insinuate the refutation of Aldiboronti's exception into the

prefatory matter.

From the 19th January to the 2d February inclusive is exactly fifteen

days, during which time, with the intervention of some days' idleness,

to let imagination brood on the task a little, I have written a volume.

I think, for a bet, I could have done it in ten days. Then I must have

had no Court of Session to take me up two or three hours every morning,

and dissipate my attention and powers of working for the rest of the

day. A volume, at cheapest, is worth £1000. This is working at the rate

of £24,000 a year; but then we must not bake buns faster than people

have appetite to eat them. They are not essential to the market, like

potatoes.

John Gibson came to tell me in the evening that a meeting to-day had

approved of the proposed trust. I know not why, but the news gives me

little concern. I heard it as a party indifferent. I remember hearing

that Mandrin[146] testified some horror when he found himself bound

alive on the wheel, and saw an executioner approach with a bar of iron

to break his limbs. After the second and third blow he fell a-laughing,

and being asked the reason by his confessor, said he laughed at his own

folly which had anticipated increased agony at every blow, when it was

obvious that the _first_ must have jarred and confounded the system of

the nerves so much as to render the succeeding blows of little

consequence. I suppose it is so with the moral feelings; at least I

could not bring myself to be anxious whether these matters were settled

one way or another.

_February_ 4.--Wrote to Mr. Laidlaw to come to town upon Monday and see

the trustees. To farm or not to farm, that is the question. With our

careless habits, it were best, I think, to risk as little as possible.

Lady Scott will not exceed with ready money in her hand; but calculating

on the produce of a farm is different, and neither she nor I are capable

of that minute economy. Two cows should be all we should keep. But I

find Lady S. inclines much for the four. If she had her youthful

activity, and could manage things, it would be well, and would amuse

her. But I fear it is too late a week.

Returned from Court by Constable's, and found Cadell had fled to the

sanctuary, being threatened with ultimate diligence by the Bank of

Scotland. If this be a vindictive movement, it is harsh, useless, and

bad of them, and flight, on the contrary, seems no good sign on his

part. I hope he won't prove his father or grandfather at Prestonpans:--

"Cadell dressed among the rest,

Wi' gun and good claymore, man,

On gelding grey he rode that day,

Wi' pistols set before, man.

The cause was gude, he'd spend his blude

Before that he would yield, man,

But the night before he left the corps,

And never faced the field, man."[147]

Harden and Mrs. Scott called on Mamma. I was abroad. Henry called on me.

Wrote only two pages (of manuscript) and a half to-day. As the boatswain

said, one can't dance always _nowther_, but, were we sure of the

quality of the stuff, what opportunities for labour does this same

system of retreat afford us! I am convinced that in three years I could

do more than in the last ten, but for the mine being, I fear, exhausted.

Give me my popularity--_an awful postulate!_--and all my present

difficulties shall be a joke in five years; and it is _not_ lost yet, at

least.

_February_ 5.--Rose after a sound sleep, and here am I without bile or

anything to perturb my inward man. It is just about three weeks since so

great a change took place in my relations in society, and already I am

indifferent to it. But I have been always told my feelings of joy and

sorrow, pleasure and pain, enjoyment and privation, are much colder than

those of other people.

"I think the Romans call it stoicism."[148]

Missie was in the drawing-room, and overheard William Clerk and me

laughing excessively at some foolery or other in the back-room, to her

no small surprise, which she did not keep to herself. But do people

suppose that he was less sorry for his poor sister,[149] or I for my

lost fortune? If I have a very strong passion in the world, it is

_pride_, and that never hinged upon world's gear, which was always with

me--Light come, light go.

_February_ 6.--Letters received yesterday from Lord Montagu, John

Morritt, and Mrs. Hughes--kind and dear friends all--with solicitous

inquiries. But it is very tiresome to tell my story over again, and I

really hope I have few more friends intimate enough to ask me for it. I

dread letter-writing, and envy the old hermit of Prague, who never saw

pen or ink. What then? One must write; it is a part of the law we live

on. Talking of writing, I finished my six pages, neat and handsome,

yesterday. _N.B._ At night I fell asleep, and the oil dropped from the

lamp upon my manuscript. Will this extreme unction make it go smoothly

down with the public?

Thus idly we "profane the sacred time"

By silly prose, light jest, and lighter rhyme.[150]

I have a song to write, too, and I am not thinking of it. I trust it

will come upon me at once--a sort of catch it should be.[151] I walked

out, feeling a little overwrought. Saw Constable and turned over

Clarendon. Cadell not yet out of hiding. This is simple work. Obliged to

borrow £240, to be refunded in spring, from John Gibson, to pay my

nephew's outfit and passage to Bombay. I wish I could have got this

money otherwise, but I must not let the orphan boy, and such a clever

fellow, miscarry through my fault. His education, etc., has been at my

expense ever since he came from America.

_February_ 7.--Had letters yesterday from Lady Davy and Lady Louisa

Stuart,[152] two very different persons. Lady Davy, daughter and

co-heiress of a wealthy Antigua merchant, has been known to me all my

life. Her father was a relation of ours of a Scotch calculation. He was

of a good family, Kerr of Bloodielaws, but decayed. Miss Jane Kerr

married first Mr. Apreece, son of a Welsh Baronet. The match was not

happy. I had lost all acquaintance with her for a long time, when about

twenty years ago we renewed it in London. She was then a widow, gay,

clever, and most actively ambitious to play a distinguished part in

London society. Her fortune, though handsome and easy, was not large

enough to make way by dint of showy entertainments, and so forth. So she

took the _blue_ line, and by great tact and management actually

established herself as a leader of literary fashion. Soon after, she

visited Edinburgh for a season or two, and studied the Northern Lights.

One of the best of them, poor Jack Playfair,[153] was disposed "to shoot

madly from his sphere,"[154] and, I believe, asked her, but he was a

little too old. She found a fitter husband in every respect in Sir

Humphry Davy, to whom she gave a handsome fortune, and whose splendid

talents and situation as President of the Royal Society gave her

naturally a distinguished place in the literary society of the

Metropolis. Now this is a very curious instance of an active-minded

woman forcing her way to the point from which she seemed furthest

excluded. For, though clever and even witty, she had no peculiar

accomplishment, and certainly no good taste either for science or

letters naturally. I was once in the Hebrides with her, and I admired to

observe how amidst sea-sickness, fatigue, some danger, and a good deal

of indifference as to what she saw, she gallantly maintained her

determination to see everything.[155] It marked her strength of

character, and she joined to it much tact, and always addressed people

on the right side. So she stands high, and deservedly so, for to these

active qualities, more French I think than English, and partaking of the

Creole vivacity and suppleness of character, she adds, I believe,

honourable principles and an excellent heart. As a lion-catcher, I could

pit her against the world. She flung her lasso (see Hall's _South

America_) over Byron himself. But then, poor soul, she is not happy. She

has a temper, and Davy has a temper, and these tempers are not one

temper, but two tempers, and they quarrel like cat and dog, which may

be good for stirring up the stagnation of domestic life, but they let

the world see it, and that is not so well. Now in all this I may be

thought a little harsh on my friend, but it is between my _Gurnal_ and

me, and, moreover, I would cry heartily if anything were to ail my

little cousin, though she be addicted to rule the Cerulean

atmosphere.[156] Then I suspect the cares of this as well as other

empires overbalance its pleasures. There must be difficulty in being

always in the right humour to hold a court. There are usurpers to be

encountered, and insurrections to be put down, an incessant troop,

_bienséances_ to be discharged, a sort of etiquette which is the curse

of all courts. An old lion cannot get hamstrung quietly at four hundred

miles distance, but the Empress must send him her condolence and a pot

of lipsalve. To be sure the monster is consanguinean, as Sir Toby

says.[157]

Looked in at Constable's coming home; Cadell emerged from Alsatia;

borrowed Clarendon. Home by half-past twelve.

My old friend Sir Peter Murray[158] called to offer his own assistance,

Lord Justice-Clerk's, and Abercromby's, to negotiate for me a seat upon

the Bench [of the Court of Session] instead of my Sheriffdom and

Clerkship. I explained to him the use which I could make of my pen was

not, I thought, consistent with that situation; and that, besides, I had

neglected the law too long to permit me to think of it; but this was

kindly and honourably done. I can see people think me much worse off

than I think myself. They may be right; but I will not be beat till I

have tried a rally, and a bold one.

_February_ 8.--Slept ill, and rather bilious in the morning. Many of the

Bench now are my juniors. I will not seek _ex eleemosynâ_ a place

which, had I turned my studies that way, I might have aspired to long

ago _ex meritis_. My pen should do much better for me than the odd £1000

a year. If it fails, I will lean on what they leave me. Another chance

might be, if it fails, in the patronage which might, after a year or

two, place me in Exchequer. But I do not count on this unless, indeed,

the D[uke] of B[uccleuch], when he comes of age, should choose to make

play.

Got to my work again, and wrote easier than the two last days.

Mr. Laidlaw[159] came in from Abbotsford and dined with us. We spent the

evening in laying down plans for the farm, and deciding whom we should

keep and whom dismiss among the people. This we did on the true

negro-driving principle of self-interest, the only principle I know

which _never_ swerves from its objects. We chose all the active, young,

and powerful men, turning old age and infirmity adrift. I cannot help

this, for a guinea cannot do the work of five; but I will contrive to

make it easier to the sufferers.

_February_ 9.--A stormy morning, lowering and blustering, like our

fortunes. _Mea virtute me involvo._ But I must say to the Muse of

fiction, as the Earl of Pembroke said to the ejected nuns of Wilton, "Go

spin, you jades, go spin!" Perhaps she has no _tow_ on her _rock_.[160]

When I was at Kilkenny last year we went to see a nunnery, but could not

converse with the sisters because they were in strict retreat. I was

delighted with the red-nosed Padre, who showed us the place with a sort

of proud, unctuous humiliation, and apparent dereliction of the world,

that had to me the air of a complete Tartuffe; a strong, sanguine,

square-shouldered son of the Church, whom a Protestant would be apt to

warrant against any sufferings he was like to sustain by privation. My

purpose, however, just now was to talk of the "strict retreat," which

did not prevent the nuns from walking in their little garden, breviary

in hand, peeping at us, and allowing us to peep at them. Well, now, _we_

are in _strict retreat_; and if we had been so last year, instead of

gallivanting to Ireland, this affair might not have befallen--if

literary labour could have prevented it. But who could have suspected

Constable's timbers to have been rotten from the beginning?

Visited the Exhibition on my way home from the Court. The new rooms are

most splendid, and several good pictures. The Institution has subsisted

but five years, and it is astonishing how much superior the worst of the

present collection are to the teaboard-looking things which first

appeared. John Thomson, of Duddingston, has far the finest picture in

the Exhibition, of a large size--subject _Dunluce_, a ruinous castle of

the Antrim family, near the Giant's Causeway, with one of those terrible

seas and skies which only Thomson can paint. Found Scrope there

improving a picture of his own, an Italian scene in Calabria. He is, I

think, greatly improved, and one of the very best amateur painters I

ever saw--Sir George Beaumont scarcely excepted. Yet, hang it, _I do_

except Sir George.

I would not write to-day after I came home. I will not say could not,

for it is not true; but I was lazy; felt the desire _far niente_, which

is the sign of one's mind being at ease. I read _The English in

Italy_,[161] which is a clever book.

Byron used to kick and frisk more contemptuously against the literary

gravity and slang than any one I ever knew who had climbed so high.

Then, it is true, I never knew any one climb so high; and before you

despise the eminence, carrying people along with you, as convinced that

you are not playing the fox and the grapes, you must be at the top.

Moore told me some delightful stories of him. One was that while they

stood at the window of Byron's Palazzo in Venice, looking at a beautiful

sunset, Moore was naturally led to say something of its beauty, when

Byron answered in a tone that I can easily conceive, "Oh! come, d--n me,

Tom, don't be poetical." Another time, standing with Moore on the

balcony of the same Palazzo, a gondola passed with two English

gentlemen, who were easily distinguished by their appearance. They cast

a careless look at the balcony and went on. Byron crossed his arms, and

half stooping over the balcony said, "Ah! d--n ye, if ye had known what

two fellows you were staring at, you would have taken a longer look at

us." This was the man, quaint, capricious, and playful, with all his

immense genius. He wrote from impulse, never from effort; and therefore

I have always reckoned Burns and Byron the most genuine poetical

geniuses of my time, and half a century before me. We have, however,

many men of high poetical talent, but none, I think, of that

ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural water.

Mr. Laidlaw dined with us. Says Mr. Gibson told him he would dispose of

my affairs, were it any but S.W.S.[162] No doubt, so should I, and am

wellnigh doing so at any rate. But, _fortuna juvante!_ much may be

achieved. At worst, the prospect is not very discouraging to one who

wants little. Methinks I have been like Burns's poor labourer,

"So constantly in Ruin's sight,

The view o't gives me little fright."

_[Edinburgh,] February_ 10.--Went through, for a new day, the task of

buttoning, which seems to me somehow to fill up more of my morning than

usual--not, certainly, that such is really the case, but that my mind

attends to the process, having so little left to hope or fear. The half

hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any

task which was exercising my invention.[163] When I get over any knotty

difficulty in a story, or have had in former times to fill up a passage

in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired

ideas thronged upon me. This is so much the case that I am in the habit

of relying upon it, and saying to myself, when I am at a loss, "Never

mind, we shall have it at seven o'clock to-morrow morning." If I have

forgot a circumstance, or a name, or a copy of verses, it is the same

thing. There is a passage about this sort of matutinal inspiration in

the Odyssey,[164] which would make a handsome figure here if I could

read or write Greek. I will look into Pope for it, who, ten to one, will

not tell me the real translation. I think the first hour of the morning

is also favourable to the bodily strength. Among other feats, when I was

a young man, I was able at times to lift a smith's anvil with one hand,

by what is called the _horn_, or projecting piece of iron on which

things are beaten to turn them round. But I could only do this before

breakfast, and shortly after rising. It required my full strength,

undiminished by the least exertion, and those who choose to try it will

find the feat no easy one. This morning I had some good ideas respecting

_Woodstock_ which will make the story better. The devil of a difficulty

is, that one puzzles the skein in order to excite curiosity, and then

cannot disentangle it for the satisfaction of the prying fiend they have

raised. A letter from Sir James Mackintosh of condolence, prettily

expressed, and which may be sung to the old tune of "Welcome, welcome,

brother Debtor." A brother son of chivalry dismounted by mischance is

sure to excite the compassion of one laid on the arena before him.

Yesterday I had an anecdote from old Sir James Steuart Denham,[165]

which is worth writing down. His uncle, Lord Elcho, was, as is well

known, engaged in the affair of 1745. He was dissatisfied with the

conduct of matters from beginning to end. But after the left wing of the

Highlanders was repulsed and broken at Culloden, Elcho rode up to the

Chevalier and told him all was lost, and that nothing remained except to

charge at the head of two thousand men, who were still unbroken, and

either turn the fate of the day or die sword in hand, as became his

pretensions. The Chevalier gave him some evasive answer, and, turning

his horse's head, rode off the field. Lord Elcho called after him (I

write the very words), "There you go for a damned cowardly Italian," and

never would see him again, though he lost his property and remained an

exile in the cause. Lord Elcho left two copies of his memoirs, one with

Sir James Steuart's family, one with Lord Wemyss. This is better

evidence than the romance of Chevalier Johnstone; and I have little

doubt it is true. Yet it is no proof of the Prince's cowardice, though

it shows him to have been no John of Gaunt. Princes are constantly

surrounded with people who hold up their own _life_ and _safety_ to them

as by far the most important stake in any contest; and this is a

doctrine in which conviction is easily received. Such an eminent person

finds everybody's advice, save here and there that of a desperate Elcho,

recommend obedience to the natural instinct of self-preservation, which

very often men of inferior situations find it difficult to combat, when

all the world are crying to them to get on and be damned, instead of

encouraging them to run away. At Prestonpans the Chevalier offered to

lead the van, and he was with the second line, which, during that brief

affair, followed the first very close. Johnstone's own account,

carefully read, brings him within a pistol-shot of the first line. At

the same time, Charles Edward had not a head or heart for great things,

notwithstanding his daring adventure; and the Irish officers, by whom he

was guided, were poor creatures. Lord George Murray was the soul of the

undertaking.[166]

_February 11_.--Court sat till half-past one. I had but a trifle to do,

so wrote letters to Mrs. Maclean Clephane and nephew Walter. Sent the

last, £40 in addition to £240 sent on the 6th, making his full equipment

£280. A man, calling himself Charles Gray of Carse, wrote to me,

expressing sympathy for my misfortunes, and offering me half the profits

of what, if I understand him right, is a patent medicine, to which I

suppose he expects me to stand trumpeter. He endeavours to get over my

objections to accepting his liberality (supposing me to entertain them)

by assuring me his conduct is founded on a _sage selfishness_. This is

diverting enough. I suppose the Commissioners of, Police will next send

me a letter of condolence, begging my acceptance of a broom, a shovel,

and a scavenger's greatcoat, and assuring me that they had appointed me

to all the emoluments of a well-frequented crossing. It would be doing

more than they have done of late for the cleanliness of the streets,

which, witness my shoes, are in a piteous pickle. I thanked the selfish

sage with due decorum--for what purpose can anger serve? I remember once

before, a mad woman, from about Alnwick, baited me with letters and

plans--first for charity to herself or some _protégé_. I gave my guinea.

Then she wanted to have half the profit of a novel which I was to

publish under my name and auspices. She sent me the manuscript, and a

_moving_ tale it was, for some of the scenes lay in the _cabinet à

l'eau._ I declined the partnership. Lastly, my fair correspondent

insisted I was a lover of speculation, and would be much profited by

going shares in a patent medicine which she had invented for the benefit

of little babies, I believe. I dreaded to have anything to do with such

a Herod-like affair, and begged to decline the honour of her

correspondence in future. I should have thought the thing a quiz, but

that the novel was real and substantial. Anne goes to Ravelston to-day

to remain to-morrow. Sir Alexander Don called, and we had a good laugh

together.

_February_ 12.--Having ended the second volume of _Woodstock_ last

night, I have to begin the third this morning. Now I have not the

slightest idea how the story is to be wound up to a catastrophe. I am

just in the same case as I used to be when I lost myself in former days

in some country to which I was a stranger. I always pushed for the

pleasantest road, and either found or made it the nearest. It is the

same in writing, I never could lay down a plan--or, having laid it down,

I never could adhere to it; the action of composition always diluted

some passages, and abridged or omitted others; and personages were

rendered important or insignificant, not according to their agency in

the original conception of the plan, but according to the success, or

otherwise, with which I was able to bring them out. I only tried to make

that which I was actually writing diverting and interesting, leaving the

rest to fate. I have been often amused with the critics distinguishing

some passages as particularly laboured, when the pen passed over the

whole as fast as it could move, and the eye never again saw them, except

in proof. Verse I write twice, and sometimes three times over. This may

be called in Spanish the _Dar donde diere_ mode of composition, in

English _hab nab at a venture_; it is a perilous style, I grant, but I

cannot help it. When I chain my mind to ideas which are purely

imaginative--for argument is a different thing--it seems to me that the

sun leaves the landscape, that I think away the whole vivacity and

spirit of my original conception, and that the results are cold, tame,

and spiritless. It is the difference between a written oration and one

bursting from the unpremeditated exertions of the speaker, which have

always something the air of enthusiasm and inspiration. I would not have

young authors imitate my carelessness, however; _consilium non currum

eape_.

Read a few pages of Will D'Avenant, who was fond of having it supposed

that Shakespeare intrigued with his mother. I think the pretension can

only be treated as Phaeton's was, according to Fielding's farce--

"Besides, by all the village boys I'm shamed,

You, the sun's son, you rascal?--you be damn'd."

Egad--I'll put that into _Woodstock_.[167] It might come well from the

old admirer of Shakespeare. Then Fielding's lines were not written. What

then?--it is an anachronism for some sly rogue to detect. Besides, it is

easy to swear they were written, and that Fielding adopted them from

tradition. Walked with Skene on the Calton Hill.

_February_ 13.--The Institution for the Encouragment of the Fine Arts

opens to-day, with a handsome entertainment in the Exhibition-room, as

at Somerset House. It strikes me that the direction given by amateurs

and professors to their _protégés_ and pupils, who aspire to be artists,

is upon a pedantic and false principle. All the Fine Arts have it for

their highest and more legitimate end and purpose, to affect the human

passions, or smooth and alleviate for a time the more unquiet feelings

of the mind--to excite wonder, or terror, or pleasure, or emotion of

some kind or other. It often happens that, in the very rise and origin

of these arts, as in the instance of Homer, the principal object is

obtained in a degree not equalled by his successors. But there is a

degree of execution which, in more refined times, the poet or musician

begins to study, which gives a value of its own to their productions of

a different kind from the rude strength of their predecessors. Poetry

becomes complicated in its rules--music learned in its cadences and

harmonies--rhetoric subtle in its periods. There is more given to the

labour of executing--less attained by the effect produced. Still the

nobler and popular end of these arts is not forgotten; and if we have

some productions too learned, too _recherchés_ for public feeling, we

have, every now and then, music that electrifies a whole assembly,

eloquence which shakes the forum, and poetry which carries men up to the

third heaven. But in painting it is different; it is all become a

mystery, the secret of which is lodged in a few connoisseurs, whose

object is not to praise the works of such painters as produce effect on

mankind at large, but to class them according to their proficiency in

the inferior rules of the art, which, though most necessary to be taught

and learned, should yet only be considered as the _Gradus ad

Parnassum_--the steps by which the higher and ultimate object of a great

popular effect is to be attained. They have all embraced the very style

of criticism which induced Michael Angelo to call some Pope a poor

creature, when, turning his attention from the general effect of a noble

statue, his Holiness began to criticise the hem of the robe. This seems

to me the cause of the decay of this delightful art, especially in

history, its noblest branch. As I speak to myself, I may say that a

painting should, to be excellent, have something to say to the mind of a

man, like myself, well-educated, and susceptible of those feelings which

anything strongly recalling natural emotion is likely to inspire. But

how seldom do I see anything that moves me much! Wilkie, the far more

than Teniers of Scotland, certainly gave many new ideas. So does Will

Allan, though overwhelmed with their rebukes about colouring and

grouping, against which they are not willing to place his general and

original merits. Landseer's dogs were the most magnificent things I ever

saw--leaping, and bounding, and grinning on the canvas. Leslie has great

powers; and the scenes from Moliere by [Newton] are excellent. Yet

painting wants a regenerator--some one who will sweep the cobwebs out of

his head before he takes the palette, as Chantrey has done in the sister

art. At present we are painting pictures from the ancients, as authors

in the days of Louis Quatorze wrote epic poems according to the recipe

of Madame Dacier and Co. The poor reader or spectator has no remedy; the

compositions are _secundum artem_, and if he does not like them, he is

no judge--that's all.

_February 14_--I had a call from Glengarry[168] yesterday, as kind and

friendly as usual. This gentleman is a kind of Quixote in our age,

having retained, in their full extent, the whole feelings of clanship

and chieftainship, elsewhere so long abandoned. He seems to have lived a

century too late, and to exist, in a state of complete law and order,

like a Glengarry of old, whose will was law to his sept. Warmhearted,

generous, friendly, he is beloved by those who know him, and his efforts

are unceasing to show kindness to those of his clan who are disposed

fully to admit his pretensions. To dispute them is to incur his

resentment, which has sometimes broken out in acts of violence which

have brought him into collision with the law. To me he is a treasure, as

being full of information as to the history of his own clan, and the

manners and customs of the Highlanders in general. Strong, active, and

muscular, he follows the chase of the deer for days and nights together,

sleeping in his plaid when darkness overtakes him in the forest. He was

fortunate in marrying a daughter of Sir William Forbes, who, by yielding

to his peculiar ideas in general, possesses much deserved influence with

him. The number of his singular exploits would fill a volume[169]; for,

as his pretensions are high, and not always willingly yielded to, he is

every now and then giving rise to some rumour. He is, on many of these

occasions, as much sinned against as sinning; for men, knowing his

temper, sometimes provoke him, conscious that Glengarry, from his

character for violence, will always be put in the wrong by the public. I

have seen him behave in a very manly manner when thus tempted. He has of

late prosecuted a quarrel, ridiculous enough in the present day, to have

himself admitted and recognised as Chief of the whole Clan Ranald, or

surname of Macdonald. The truth seems to be, that the present Clanranald

is not descended from a legitimate Chieftain of the tribe; for, having

accomplished a revolution in the sixteenth century, they adopted a

Tanist, or Captain--that is, a Chief not in the direct line of

succession, a certain Ian Moidart, or John of Moidart, who took the

title of Captain of Clanranald, with all the powers of Chief, and even

Glengarry's ancestor recognised them as chiefs _de facto_ if not _de

jure_. The fact is, that this elective power was, in cases of insanity,

imbecility, or the like, exercised by the Celtic tribes; and though Ian

Moidart was no chief by birth, yet by election he became so, and

transmitted his power to his descendants, as would King William III., if

he had had any. So it is absurd to set up the _jus sanguinis_ now, which

Glengarry's ancestors did not, or could not, make good, when it was a

right worth combating for. I wrought out my full task yesterday.

Saw Cadell as I returned from the Court. He seems dejected, apprehensive

of another trustee being preferred to Cowan, and gloomy about the extent

of stock of novels, etc., on hand. He infected me with his want of

spirits, and I almost wish my wife had not asked Mr. Scrope and Charles

K. Sharpe for this day. But the former sent such loads of game that Lady

Scott's gratitude became ungovernable. I have not seen a creature at

dinner since the direful 17th January, except my own family and Mr.

Laidlaw. The love of solitude increases by indulgence; I hope it will

not diverge into misanthropy. It does not mend the matter that this is

the first day that a ticket for sale is on my house. Poor No. 39.[170]

One gets accustomed even to stone walls, and the place suited me very

well. All our furniture, too, is to go--a hundred little articles that

seemed to me connected with all the happier years of my life. It is a

sorry business. But _sursum corda_.

My two friends came as expected, also Missie, and stayed till half-past

ten. Promised Sharpe the set of Piranesi's views in the dining-parlour.

They belonged to my uncle, so I do not like to sell them.[171]

_February_ 15.--Yesterday I did not write a line of _Woodstock_. Partly,

I was a little out of spirits, though that would not have hindered.

Partly, I wanted to wait for some new ideas--a sort of collecting of

straw to make bricks of. Partly, I was a little too far beyond the

press. I cannot pull well in long traces, when the draught is too far

behind me. I love to have the press thumping, clattering, and banging in

my rear; it creates the necessity which almost always makes me work

best. Needs must when the devil drives--and drive he does even according

to the letter. I must work to-day, however. Attended a meeting of the

Faculty about our new library. I spoke--saying that I hoped we would now

at length act upon a general plan, and look forward to commencing upon

such a scale as would secure us at least for a century against the petty

and partial management, which we have hitherto thought sufficient, of

fitting up one room after another. Disconnected and distant, these have

been costing large sums of money from time to time, all now thrown away.

We are now to have space enough for a very large range of buildings,

which we may execute in a simple taste, leaving Government to ornament

them if they shall think proper--otherwise, to be plain, modest, and

handsome, and capable of being executed by degrees, and in such

portions as convenience may admit of.

Poor James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, came to advise with me about his

affairs,--he is sinking under the times; having no assistance to give

him, my advice, I fear, will be of little service. I am sorry for him if

that would help him, especially as, by his own account, a couple of

hundred pounds would carry him on.

_February_ 16.---"Misfortune's gowling bark"[172] comes louder and

louder. By assigning my whole property to trustees for behoof of

creditors, with two works in progress and nigh publication, and with all

my future literary labours, I conceived I was bringing into the field a

large fund of payment, which could not exist without my exertions, and

that thus far I was entitled to a corresponding degree of indulgence. I

therefore supposed, on selling this house, and various other property,

and on receiving the price of _Woodstock_ and _Napoleon_, that they

would give me leisure to make other exertions, and be content with the

rents of Abbotsford, without attempting a sale. This would have been the

more reasonable, as the very printing of these works must amount to a

large sum, of which they will reap the profits. In the course of this

delay I supposed I was to have the chance of getting some insight both

into Constable's affairs and those of Hurst and Robinson. Nay, employing

these houses, under precautions, to sell the works, the publisher's

profit would have come in to pay part of their debts. But Gibson last

night came in after dinner, and gave me to understand that the Bank of

Scotland see this in a different point of view, and consider my

contribution of the produce of past, present, and future labours, as

compensated in full by their accepting of the trust-deed, instead of

pursuing the mode of sequestration, and placing me in the _Gazette_.

They therefore expected the trustees instantly to commence a law-suit

to reduce the marriage settlement, which settles the estate upon Walter,

thus loading me with a most expensive suit, and, I suppose, selling

library and whatever they can lay hold on.

Now this seems unequal measure, and would besides of itself totally

destroy any power of fancy or genius, if it deserves the name, which may

remain to me. A man cannot write in the House of Correction; and this

species of _peine forte et dure_ which is threatened would render it

impossible for one to help himself or others. So I told Gibson I had my

mind made up as far back as the 24th of January, not to suffer myself to

be harder pressed than law would press me. If this great commercial

company, through whose hands I have directed so many thousands, think

they are right in taking every advantage and giving none, it must be my

care to see that they take none but what law gives them. If they take

the sword of the law, I must lay hold of the shield. If they are

determined to consider me as an irretrievable bankrupt, they have no

title to object to my settling upon the usual terms which the Statute

requires. They probably are of opinion that I will be ashamed to do this

by applying publicly for a sequestration. Now, my feelings are

different. I am ashamed to owe debts I cannot pay; but I am not ashamed

of being classed with those to whose rank I belong. The disgrace is in

being an actual bankrupt, not in being made a legal one. I had like to

have been too hasty in this matter. I must have a clear understanding

that I am to be benefited or indulged in some way, if I bring in two

such funds as those works in progress, worth certainly from £10,000 to

£15,000.

Clerk came in last night and drank wine and water.

Slept ill, and bilious in the morning. _N.B._--I smoked a cigar, the

first for this present year, yesterday evening.

_February_ 17.--Slept sound, for Nature repays herself for the vexation

the mind sometimes gives her. This morning put interlocutors on several

Sheriff-Court processes from Selkirkshire. Gibson came to-night to say

that he had spoken at full length with Alexander Monypenny, proposed as

trustee on the part of the Bank of Scotland, and found him decidedly in

favour of the most moderate measures, and taking burthen on himself for

the Bank of Scotland proceeding with such lenity as might enable me to

have some time and opportunity to clear these affairs out. I repose

trust in Mr. M. entirely. His father, old Colonel Monypenny, was my

early friend, kind and hospitable to me when I was a mere boy. He had

much of old Withers about him, as expressed in Pope's epitaph--

"O youth in arms approved!

O soft humanity in age beloved."[173]

His son David, and a younger brother, Frank, a soldier who perished by

drowning on a boating party from Gibraltar, were my school-fellows; and

with the survivor, now Lord Pitmilly,[174] I have always kept up a

friendly intercourse. Of this gentleman, on whom my fortunes are to

depend, I know little. He was Colin Mackenzie's partner in business

while my friend pursued it, and he speaks highly of him: that's a great

deal. He is secretary to the Pitt Club, and we have had all our lives

the habit _idem sentire de republica_: that's much too. Lastly, he is a

man of perfect honour and reputation; and I have nothing to ask which

such a man would not either grant or convince me was unreasonable. I

have, to be sure, some of my constitutional and hereditary obstinacy;

but it is in me a dormant quality. Convince my understanding, and I am

perfectly docile; stir my passions by coldness or affronts, and the

devil would not drive me from my purpose. Let me record, I have striven

against this besetting sin. When I was a boy, and on foot expeditions,

as we had many, no creature could be so indifferent which way our course

was directed, and I acquiesced in what any one proposed; but if I was

once driven to make a choice, and felt piqued in honour to maintain my

proposition, I have broken off from the whole party, rather than yield

to any one. Time has sobered this pertinacity of mind; but it still

exists, and I must be on my guard against it.

It is the same with me in politics. In general I care very little about

the matter, and from year's end to year's end have scarce a thought

connected with them, except to laugh at the fools who think to make

themselves great men out of little, by swaggering in the rear of a

party. But either actually important events, or such as seemed so by

their close neighbourhood to me, have always hurried me off my feet, and

made me, as I have sometimes afterwards regretted, more forward and more

violent than those who had a regular jog-trot way of busying themselves

in public matters. Good luck; for had I lived in troublesome times, and

chanced to be on the unhappy side, I had been hanged to a certainty.

What I have always remarked has been, that many who have hallooed me on

at public meetings, and so forth, have quietly left me to the odium

which a man known to the public always has more than his own share of;

while, on the other hand, they were easily successful in pressing before

me, who never pressed forward at all, when there was any distribution of

public favours or the like. I am horribly tempted to interfere in this

business of altering the system of banks in Scotland; and yet I know

that if I can attract any notice, I will offend my English friends

without propitiating one man in Scotland. I will think of it till

to-morrow. It is making myself of too much importance after all.

_February_ 18.--I set about Malachi Malagrowther's Letter on the late

disposition to change everything in Scotland to an English model, but

without resolving about the publication. They do treat us very

provokingly.

"O Land of Cakes! said the Northern bard,

Though all the world betrays thee,

One faithful pen thy rights shall guard,

One faithful harp shall praise thee."[175]

Called on the Lord Chief Commissioner, who, understanding there was a

hitch in our arrangements, had kindly proposed to execute an arrangement

for my relief. I could not, I think, have thought of it at any rate. But

it is unnecessary.

_February_ 19.--Finished my letter (Malachi Malagrowther) this morning,

and sent it to James B., who is to call with the result this forenoon. I

am not very anxious to get on with _Woodstock_. I want to see what

Constable's people mean to do when they have their trustee. For an

unfinished work they must treat with the author. It is the old story of

the varnish spread over the picture, which nothing but the artist's own

hand could remove. A finished work might be seized under some legal

pretence.

Being troubled with thick-coming fancies, and a slight palpitation of

the heart, I have been reading the Chronicle of the Good Knight Messire

Jacques de Lalain--curious, but dull, from the constant repetition of

the same species of combats in the same style and phrase. It is like

washing bushels of sand for a grain of gold. It passes the time,

however, especially in that listless mood when your mind is half on your

book, half on something else. You catch something to arrest the

attention every now and then, and what you miss is not worth going back

upon; idle man's studies, in short. Still things occur to one. Something

might be made out of the Pass or Fountain of Tears,[176] a tale of

chivalry,--taken from the Passages of Arms, which Jacques de Lalain

maintained for the first day of every month for a twelvemonth.[177] The

first mention perhaps of red-hot balls appears in the siege of Oudenarde

by the citizens of Ghent. _Chronique_, p. 293. This would be light

summer work.

J.B. came and sat an hour. I led him to talk of _Woodstock_; and, to say

truth, his approbation did me much good. I am aware it _may_--nay,

_must_--be partial; yet is he Tom Tell-truth, and totally unable to

disguise his real feelings.[178] I think I make no habit of feeding on

praise, and despise those whom I see greedy for it, as much as I should

an under-bred fellow, who, after eating a cherry-tart, proceeded to lick

the plate. But when one is flagging, a little praise (if it can be had

genuine and unadulterated by flattery, which is as difficult to come by

as the genuine mountain-dew) is a cordial after all. So now--_vamos

corazon_--let us atone for the loss of the morning.

_February_ 20.--Yesterday, though late in beginning, I nearly finished

my task, which is six of my close pages, about thirty pages of print,

to a full and uninterrupted day's work. To-day I have already written

four, and with some confidence. Thus does flattery or praise oil the

wheels. It is but two o'clock. Skene was here remonstrating against my

taking apartments at the Albyn Club,[179] and recommending that I should

rather stay with them.[180] I told him that was altogether impossible; I

hoped to visit them often, but for taking a permanent residence I was

altogether the country mouse, and voted for

"--A hollow tree,

A crust of bread and liberty."[181]

The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of

constant close contact.

_February_ 21.--Corrected the proofs of _Malachi_[182] this morning; it

may fall dead, and there will be a squib lost; it may chance to light on

some ingredients of national feeling and set folk's beards in a

blaze--and so much the better if it does. I mean better for

Scotland--not a whit for me. Attended the hearing in P[arliament] House

till near four o'clock, so I shall do little to-night, for I am tired

and sleepy. One person talking for a long time, whether in pulpit or at

the bar, or anywhere else, unless the interest be great, and the

eloquence of the highest character, always sets me to sleep. I

impudently lean my head on my hand in the Court and take my nap without

shame. The Lords may keep awake and mind their own affairs. _Quod supra

nos nihil ad nos._ These clerks' stools are certainly as easy seats as

are in Scotland, those of the Barons of Exchequer always excepted.

_February_ 22.--Paid Lady Scott her fortnight's allowance, £24.

Ballantyne breakfasted, and is to negotiate about _Malachi_ with

Constable and Blackwood. It reads not amiss; and if I can get a few

guineas for it I shall not be ashamed to take them; for paying Lady

Scott, I have just left between £3 and £4 for any necessary occasion

and my salary does not become due until 20th March, and the expense of

removing, etc., is to be provided for:

"But shall we go mourn for that, my dear?

The cold moon shines by night,

And when we wander here and there,

We then do go most right."[183]

The mere scarcity of money (so that actual wants are provided) is not

poverty--it is the bitter draft to owe money which we cannot pay.

Laboured fairly at _Woodstock_ to-day, but principally in revising and

adding to _Malachi_, of which an edition as a pamphlet is anxiously

desired. I have lugged in my old friend Cardrona[184]--I hope it will

not be thought unkindly. The Banks are anxious to have it published.

They were lately exercising lenity towards me, and if I can benefit

them, it will be an instance of the "King's errand lying in the cadger's

gate."

_February_ 23.--Corrected two sheets of _Woodstock_ this morning. These

are not the days of idleness. The fact is, that the not seeing company

gives me a command of my time which I possessed at no other period in my

life, at least since I knew how to make some use of my leisure. There is

a great pleasure in sitting down to write with the consciousness that

nothing will occur during the day to break the spell. Detained in the

Court till past three, and came home just in time to escape a terrible

squall. I am a good deal jaded, and will not work till after dinner.

There is a sort of drowsy vacillation of mind attends fatigue with me. I

can command my pen as the school copy recommends, but cannot equally

command my thought, and often write one word for another. Read a little