part in the Rebellion of 1745, and was long afterwards an exile. The

reader is no doubt acquainted with "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters"

addressed to him and his wife, Lady Frances.--J.G.L. See also Mrs.

Calderwood's _Letters_, 8vo. Edin. 1884. Sir James died in 1839.

[166] "Had Prince Charles slept during the whole of the expedition,"

says the Chevalier Johnstone, "and allowed Lord George Murray to act for

him according to his own judgment, there is every reason for supposing

he would have found the crown of Great Britain on his head when he

awoke."--_Memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745_, etc. 4to, p. 140. London,

1810.--J.G.L.

[167] The lines are given in _Woodstock_, with the following apology:

"We observe this couplet in Fielding's farce of _Tumbledown Dick_,

founded on the same classical story. As it was current in the time of

the Commonwealth, it must have reached the author of _Tom Jones_ by

tradition, for no one will suspect the present author of making the

anachronism."

[168] Colonel Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry. He died in January

1828.--J.G.L.

[169] "We have had Maréchal Macdonald here. We had a capital account of

Glengarry visiting the interior of a convent in the ancient Highland

garb, and the effect of such an apparition on the nuns, who fled in all

directions."--Scott to Skene, Edinburgh, 24th June 1825.

[170] No. 39 Castle Street, which had been occupied by him from 1802,

when he removed from No. 10 in the same street. The situation suited

him, as the houses of nearly all his friends were within a circle of a

few hundred yards. For description see _Life_, vol. v. pp. 321, 333-4,

etc.

[171] See below, _March_ 12.

[172] Burns's _Dedication_ to Gavin Hamilton--

"May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark Howl through the dwelling o' the

_Clerk_."

[173]

"O born to arms! O worth in youth approved, O soft humanity in age

beloved!"

--See Pope, _Epitaphs_, 9.

[174] David Monypenny had been on the Bench from 1813; he retired in

1830, and died at the age of eighty-one in 1850.

[175] Parody on Moore's _Minstrel Boy_.--J.G.L.

[176] "Le Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs."--_Chroniques Nationales_.

[177] This hint was taken up in _Count Robert of Paris_.--J.G.L.

[178] James Ballantyne gives an interesting account of an interview a

dozen years before this time, when "Tom Telltruth" had a somewhat

delicate task to perform:--

"_The Lord of the Isles_ was by far the least popular of the series, and

Mr. Scott was very prompt at making such discoveries. In about a week

after its publication he took me into his library, and asked me what the

people were saying about _The Lord of the Isles_. I hesitated, much in

the same manner that Gil Blas might be supposed to do when a similar

question was put by the Archbishop of Grenada, but he very speedily

brought the matter to a point--'Come, speak out, my good fellow, what

has put it in your head to be on ceremony with me? But the result is in

one word--disappointment!' My silence admitted his inference to its

fullest extent. His countenance certainly did look rather blank for a

few seconds (for it is a singular fact, that before the public, or

rather the booksellers, gave _their_ decision he no more knew whether he

had written well or ill, than whether a die, which he threw out of a

box, was to turn out a sise or an ace). However, he almost instantly

resumed his spirits and expressed his wonder rather that his popularity

had lasted so long, than that it should have given way at last. At

length, with a perfectly cheerful manner, he said, 'Well, well, James,

but you know we must not droop--for you know we can't and won't give

over--we must just try something else, and the question is, what it's to

be?' Nor was it any wonder he spoke thus, for he could not fail to be

unconsciously conscious, if I dare use such a term, of his own gigantic,

and as yet undeveloped, powers, and was somewhat under forty years old.

I am by no means sure whether he then alluded to _Waverley_, as if he

had mentioned it to me for the first time, for my memory has greatly

failed me touching this, or whether he alluded to it, as in fact appears

to have been the case, as having been commenced and laid aside several

years before, but I well recollect that he consulted me with his usual

openness and candour respecting his probability of succeeding as a

novelist, and I confess my expectations were not very sanguine. He saw

this and said, 'Well, I don't see why I should not succeed as well as

other people. Come, faint heart never won fair lady--let us try.' I

remember when the work was put into my hands, I could not get myself to

think much, of the Waverley Honour scenes, but to my shame be it spoken,

when he had reached the exquisite scenes of Scottish manners at

Tully-Veolan, I thought them, and pronounced them, vulgar! When the

success of the book so utterly knocked me down as a man of taste, all

that the good-natured Author observed was, 'Well, I really thought you

might be wrong about the Scotch. Why, Burns had already attracted

universal attention to all about Scotland, and I confess I could not see

why I should not be able to keep the flame alive, merely because I wrote

in prose in place of rhyme.'"--_Memorandum_.

[179] This was a club-house on the London plan, in Princes Street [No.

54], a little eastward from the Mound. On its dissolution soon

afterwards, Sir W. was elected by acclamation into the elder Society,

called the _New Club_, who had then their house in St. Andrew Square

[No. 3], and since 1837 in Princes Street [No. 85].

[180] Mr. Skene's house was No. 126 Princes Street. Scott's written

answer has been preserved:--

"MY DEAR SKENE,--A thousand thanks for your kind proposal. But I am a

solitary monster by temper, and must necessarily couch in a den of my

own. I should not, I assure you, have made any ceremony in accepting

your offer had it at all been like to suit me.

"But I must make an arrangement which is to last for years, and perhaps

for my lifetime; therefore the sooner I place myself on my footing it

will be so much the better.--Always, dear Skene, your obliged and

faithful, W. SCOTT."

[181] Pope's _Imitation of Horace_, Bk. ii Sat. 6.--J.G.L.

[182] These Letters appeared in the _Edinburgh Weekly Journal_ in

February and March 1826. "They were then collected into a pamphlet, and

ran through numerous editions; in the subsequent discussions in

Parliament, they were frequently referred to; and although an elaborate

answer by the then Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Croker, attracted

much notice, and was, by the Government of the time, expected to

neutralise the effect of the northern lucubrations--the proposed

measure, as regarded Scotland, was ultimately abandoned, and that result

was universally ascribed to Malachi Malagrowther."--Scott's _Misc.

Works_, vol. xxi.

[183] _Winter's Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 2, slightly altered.

[184] The late Mr. Williamson of Cardrona in Peeblesshire, was a strange

humorist, of whom Sir Walter told many stories. The allusion here is to

the anecdote of the _Leetle Anderson_ in the first of _Malachi_'s

Epistles.:--See Scott's _Prose Miscellanies_, vol. xxi. p.

289.--_J.G.L._

[185] _The Omen_, by Galt, had just been published.--See Sir Walter's

review of this novel in the _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xviii. p.

333. John Gait died at Greenock in April 1839.--J.G.L.

[186] "A Letter from Malachi Malagrowther, Esq., to the Editor of the

_Edinburgh Weekly Journal_, on the proposed Change of Currency, and

other late alterations as they affect, or are intended to affect, the

Kingdom of Scotland. 8 vo, Edin. 1826."

The motto to the epistle was:--

"When the pipes begin to play

_Tutti taittie_ to the drum,

Out claymore and down wi' gun,

And to the rogues again."

In the next edition it was suppressed, as some friends thought it might

be misunderstood. Mr. Croker in his reply had urged that if the author

appealed to the edge of the claymore at Prestonpans, he might refer him

to the point of the bayonet at Culloden.--See Croker's _Correspondence_,

vol. i. pp. 317-320, and Scott's _Life_, vol. viii. pp. 301-5.

[187] Lord Reston, who died at Gladsmuir in 1819. He was one of Scott's

companions at the High School.--See _Life_., vol. i. p. 40.

[188] See Gray's _Elegy_.--J.G.L.

[189] In Arthur Murphy's farce of _The Upholsterer, or What News_?

[190] Lady Anna Maria Elliot, daughter of the first Earl of Minto. She

married Sir Rufane Donkin in 1832.

[191] Afterwards Lord Advocate, 1834 and 1835, and Judge under the title

of Lord Murray from 1839; he died in 1859.

[192] The learned editor of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, in

10 vols. folio, Edin. 1814-24; he succeeded Sir Walter as President of

the Bannatyne Club in 1832, and died in 1852.

[193] Rose Court, where Mr. Clerk had a bachelor's establishment, was

situated immediately behind St. Andrew's Church, George Street. The name

disappeared from our Street Directories shortly after Mr. Clerk's death

in 1847.

[194] Burns, in Johnson's _Musical Museum_, No. 319.

[195] One of the nineteen original members of _The Club_.--See Mr.

Irving's letter with names, _Life_, vol. i. pp. 207-8, and Scott's

joyous visit in 1793 to Meigle, pp. 292-4.

[196] Dalgleish was Sir Walter's butler. He said he cared not how much

his wages were reduced--but go he would not.--J.G.L.

[197] Whin-cow--_Anglicè_, a bush of furze.--J.G.L.

MARCH.

_March_ 1.--_Malachi_ is in the _Edinburgh Journal_ to-day, and reads

like the work of an uncompromising right-forward Scot of the old school.

Some of the cautious and pluckless instigators will be afraid of their

confederate; for if a man of some energy and openness of character

happens to be on the same side with these truckling jobbers, they stand

as much in awe of his vehemence as doth the inexperienced conjurer who

invokes a fiend whom he cannot manage. Came home, in a heavy shower with

the Solicitor. I tried him on the question, but found him reserved and

cautious. The future Lord Advocate must be cautious; but I can tell my

good friend John Hope that, if he acts the part of a firm and resolute

Scottish patriot, both his own country and England will respect him the

more. Ah! Hal Dundas, there was no such truckling in thy day!

Looked out a quantity of things to go to Abbotsford; for we are

flitting, if you please.[198] It is with a sense of pain that I leave

behind a parcel of trumpery prints and little ornaments, once the pride

of Lady S----'s heart, but which she sees consigned with indifference to

the chance of an auction. Things that have had their day of importance

with me I cannot forget, though the merest trifles. But I am glad that

she, with bad health and enough to vex her, has not the same useless

mode of associating recollections with this unpleasant business. The

best part of it is the necessity of leaving behind, viz., setting rid

of, a set of most wretched daubs of landscapes, in great gilded frames,

of which I have often been heartily ashamed. The history of them was

curious. An amateur artist (a lady) happened to fall into misfortunes,

upon which her landscapes, the character of which had been buoyed up far

beyond their proper level, sank even beneath it, and it was low enough.

One most amiable and accomplished old lady continued to encourage her

pencil, and to order picture after picture, which she sent in presents

to her friends. I suppose I have eight or ten of them, which I could not

avoid accepting. There will be plenty of laughing when they come to be

sold. It would be a good joke enough to cause it to be circulated that

they were performances of my own in early youth, and they would be

looked on and bought up as curiosities. True it is that I took lessons

of oil-painting in youth from a little Jew animalcule, a smouch called

Burrell, a clever sensible creature though; but I could make no progress

either in painting or drawing. Nature denied me correctness of eye and

neatness of hand, yet I was very desirous to be a draughtsman at least,

and laboured harder to attain that point than at any other in my

recollection, to which I did not make some approaches. My oil-paintings

were to Miss ------ above commemorated what hers are to Claude Lorraine.

Yet Burrell was not useless to me altogether neither; he was a Prussian,

and I got from him many a long story of the battles of Frederic, in

whose armies his father had been a commissary, or perhaps a spy. I

remember his picturesque account of seeing a party of the Black Hussars

bringing in some forage carts which they had taken from a body of the

Cossacks, whom he described as lying on the top of the carts of hay,

mortally wounded, and, like the Dying Gladiator, eyeing their own blood

as it ran down through the straw. I afterwards took lessons from Walker,

whom we used to call Blue-beard. He was one of the most conceited

persons in the world, but a good teacher--one of the ugliest

countenances he had too--enough, as we say, to spean weans.[199] The

man was always extremely precise in the quality of everything about him,

his dress, accommodations, and everything else. He became insolvent,

poor man, and for some reason or other I attended the meeting of those

concerned in his affairs. Instead of ordinary accommodations for

writing, each of the persons present was equipped with a large sheet of

drawing paper and a swan's quill. It was mournfully ridiculous enough.

Skirving[200] made an admirable likeness of Walker, not a single scar or

mark of the smallpox which seamed his countenance, but the too accurate

brother of the brush had faithfully laid it down in longitude and

latitude. Poor Walker destroyed it (being in crayons) rather than let

the caricature of his ugliness appear at the sale of his effects. I did

learn myself to take some vile views from Nature. When Will Clerk and I

lived very much together, I used sometimes to make them under his

instruction. He to whom, as to all his family, art is a familiar

attribute, wondered at me as a Newfoundland dog would at a greyhound

which showed fear of the water.

Going down to Liddesdale once, I drew the castle of Hermitage in my

fashion, and sketched it so accurately that with a few verbal

instructions Clerk put it into regular form, Williams[201] (the Grecian)

copied over Clerk's, and _his_ drawing was engraved as the frontispiece

of the first volume of the Kelso edition, _Minstrelsy of the Scottish

Border_.[202] Do you know why you have written all this down, Sir W.?

Because it pleases me to record that this thrice-transmitted drawing,

though taken originally from a sketch of mine, was extremely like

Hermitage, which neither of my colleagues in the task had ever seen? No,

that's not the reason. You want to put off writing _Woodstock_, just as

easily done as these memoranda, but which it happens your duty and your

prudence recommend, and therefore you are loath to begin.

"Heigho,

I can't say no;

But this piece of task-work off I can stave, O,

For Malachi's posting into an octavo;

To correct the proof-sheets only this night I have, O,

So, Madame Conscience, you've gotten as good as you gave, O

But to-morrow's a new day and we'll better behave, O,

So I lay down the pen, and your pardon I crave, O."

In the evening Mr. Gibson called and transacted business.

_March_ 2.--I have a letter from Colin Mackenzie, approving

_Malachi_,--"Cold men may say it is too strong; but from the true men of

Scotland you are sure of the warmest gratitude." I never have yet found,

nor do I expect it on this occasion, that ill-will dies in debt, or what

is called gratitude distresses herself by frequent payments. The one is

like a ward-holding and pays its reddendo in hard blows. The other a

blanch-tenure, and is discharged for payment of a red rose or a

peppercorn. He that takes the forlorn hope in an attack, is often

deserted by those that should support him, and who generally throw the

blame of their own cowardice upon his rashness. We shall see this will

end in the same way. But I foresaw it from the beginning. The bankers

will be persuaded that it is a squib which may burn their own fingers,

and will curse the poor pyrotechnist that compounded it; if they do,

they be d--d. Slept indifferently, and dreamed of Napoleon's last

moments, of which I was reading a medical account last night, by Dr.

Arnott. Horrible death--a cancer on the pylorus. I would have given

something to have lain still this morning and made up for lost time. But

_desidiae valedixi_. If you once turn on your side after the hour at

which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once. Bad night

last--the next is sure to be better.

"When the drum beats, make ready;

When the fife plays, march away--

To the roll-call, to the roll-call, to the roll-call,

Before the break of day."

Dined with Chief-Commissioner, Admiral Adam, W. Clerk, Thomson, and I.

The excellent old man was cheerful at intervals--at times sad, as was

natural. A good blunder he told us, occurred in the Annandale case,

which was a question partly of domicile. It was proved that leaving

Lochwood, the Earl had given up his _kain_ and _carriages_;[203] this an

English Counsel contended was the best of all possible proofs that the

noble Earl designed an absolute change of residence, since he laid aside

his _walking-stick_ and his _coach_.

First epistle of _Malachi_ is getting out of print, or rather is out of

print already.

_March_ 3.--Could not get the last sheets of _Malachi_, Second Epistle,

last night, so they must go out to the world uncorrected--a great loss,

for the last touches are always most effectual; and I expect misprints

in the additional matter. We were especially obliged to have it out this

morning, that it may operate as a gentle preparative for the meeting of

inhabitants at two o'clock. _Vogue la galère_--we shall see if Scotsmen

have any pluck left. If not, they may kill the next Percy themselves. It

is ridiculous enough for me, in a state of insolvency for the present,

to be battling about gold and paper currency. It is something like the

humorous touch in Hogarth's _Distressed Poet_, where the poor starveling

of the Muses is engaged, when in the abyss of poverty, in writing an

Essay on payment of the National Debt; and his wall is adorned with a

plan of the mines of Peru. Nevertheless, even these fugitive attempts,

from the success which they have had, and the noise they are making,

serve to show the truth of the old proverb--

"When house and land are gone and spent,

Then learning is most excellent."

On the whole, I am glad of this brulzie, as far as I am concerned;

people will not dare talk of me as an object of pity--no more

"poor-manning." Who asks how many punds Scots the old champion had in

his pocket when

"He set a bugle to his mouth,

And blew so loud and shrill,

The trees in greenwood shook thereat,

Sae loud rang ilka hill"?[204]

This sounds conceited enough, yet is not far from truth.

The meeting was very numerous, 500 or 600 at least, and unanimous, save

in one Mr. Howden, who having been all his life, as I am told, in bitter

opposition to Ministers, proposed on the present occasion that the whole

contested measure should be trusted to their wisdom. I suppose he chose

the opportunity of placing his own opinion in opposition, single

opposition too, to that of a large assembly. The speaking was very

moderate. Report had said that Jeffrey, J.A. Murray, and other sages of

the economical school, were to unbuckle their mails, and give us their

opinions. But no such great guns appeared. If they had, having the

multitude on my side, I would have tried to break a lance with them. A

few short but well-expressed resolutions were adopted unanimously. These

were proposed by Lord Rollo, and seconded by Sir James Fergusson, Bart.

I was named one of a committee to encourage all sorts of opposition to

the measure. So I have already broken through two good and wise

resolutions--one, that I would not write on political controversy;

another, that I would not be named on public committees. If my good

resolves go this way, like _snaw aff a dyke_--the Lord help me!

_March_ 4.--Last night I had a letter from Lockhart, who, speaking of

_Malachi_, says, "The Ministers are sore beyond imagination at present;

and some of them, I hear, have felt this new whip on the raw to some

purpose." I conclude he means Canning is offended. I can't help it, as I

said before--_fiat justitia, ruat coelum_. No cause in which I had the

slightest personal interest should have made me use my pen 'gainst them,

blunt or pointed as it may be. But as they are about to throw this

country into distress and danger, by a measure of useless and

uncalled-for experiment, they must hear the opinion of the Scotsmen, to

whom it is of no other consequence than as a general measure affecting

the country at large,--and mine they _shall_ hear. I had determined to

lay down the pen. But now they shall have another of _Malachi_,

beginning with buffoonery, and ending as seriously as I can write it. It

is like a frenzy that they will agitate the upper and middling classes

of society, so very friendly to them, with unnecessary and hazardous

[projects],

"Oh, thus it was they loved them dear,

And sought how to requite 'em,

And having no friends left but they,

They did resolve to fight them."

The country is very high just now. England may carry the measure if she

will, doubtless. But what will be the consequence of the distress

ensuing, God only can foretell.

Lockhart, moreover, inquires about my affairs anxiously, and asks what

he is to say about them; says, "He has inquiries every day; kind, most

kind all, and among the most interested and anxious, Sir William

Knighton,[205] who told me the king was quite melancholy all the evening

he heard of it." _This_ I can well believe, for the king, educated as a

prince, has, nevertheless, as true and kind a heart as any subject in

his dominions. He goes on: "I do think they would give you a Baron's

gown as soon as possible," etc. I have written to him in answer, showing

I have enough to carry me on, and can dedicate my literary efforts to

clear my land. The preferment would suit me well, and the late Duke of

Buccleuch gave me his interest for it. I dare say the young duke would

do the same, for the unvaried love I have borne his house; and by and by

he will have a voice potential. But there is Sir William Rae in the

meantime, whose prevailing claim I would never place my own in

opposition to, even were it possible by a _tour de force_, such as L.

points at, to set it aside. Meantime, I am building a barrier betwixt me

and promotion. Any prospect of the kind is very distant and very

uncertain. _Come time, come, rath_, as the German says.

In the meanwhile, now I am not pulled about for money, etc., methinks I

am happier without my wealth than with it. Everything is paid. I have no

one wishing to _make up a sum_ of money, and writing for his account to

be paid. Since 17th January I have not laid out a guinea, out of my own

hand, save two or three in charity, and six shillings for a pocket-book.

But the cash with which I set out having run short for family expenses I

drew on Blackwood, through Ballantyne, which was honoured, for £25, to

account of _Malachi's Letters_, of which another edition of 1000 is

ordered, and gave it to Lady Scott, because our removal will require

that in hand. This is for a fortnight succeeding Wednesday next, being

the 8th March current. On the 20th my quarter comes in, and though I

have something to pay out of it, I shall be on velvet for expense--and

regular I will be. Methinks all trifling objects of expenditure seem to

grow light in my eyes. That I may regain independence, I must be saving.

But ambition awakes, as love of quiet indulgence dies and is mortified

within me. "Dark Cuthullin will be renowned or dead."[206]

_March_ 5.--Something of toddy and cigar in that last quotation, I

think. Yet I only smoked two, and liquified with one glass of spirits

and water. I have sworn I will not blot out what I have once written

here.

_Malachi_ goes on, but I am dubious about the commencement--it must be

mended at least--reads prosy.

Had letters from Walter and Jane, the dears. All well. Regiment about to

move from Dublin.

_March_ 6.--Finished third _Malachi_, which I don't much like. It

respects the difficulty of finding gold to replace the paper

circulation. Now this should have been considered first. The admitting

that the measure may be imposed is yielding up the question, and

_Malachi_ is like a commandant who should begin to fire from interior

defences before his outworks were carried. If Ballantyne be of my own

opinion I will suppress it. We are all in a bustle shifting things to

Abbotsford. I believe we shall stay here till the beginning of next

week. It is odd, but I don't feel the impatience for the country which I

have usually experienced.

_March_ 7.--Detained in the Court till _three_ by a hearing. Then to the

Committee appointed at the meeting on Friday, to look after the

small-note business. A pack of old _fainéants_, incapable of managing

such a business, and who will lose the day from mere coldness of heart.

There are about a thousand names at the petition. They have added no

designations--a great blunder; for _testimonia sunt ponderanda, non

numeranda_ should never be lost sight of. They are disconcerted and

helpless; just as in the business of the King's visit, when everybody

threw the weight on me, for which I suffered much in my immediate

labour, and after bad health it brought on a violent eruption on my

skin, which saved me from a fever at the time, but has been troublesome

more or less ever since. I was so disgusted with seeing them sitting in

ineffectual helplessness spitting on the hot iron that lay before them,

and touching it with a timid finger, as if afraid of being scalded,

that at another time I might have dashed in and taken up the hammer,

summoned the deacons and other heads of public bodies, and by consulting

them have carried them with me. But I cannot waste my time, health, and

spirits in fighting thankless battles. I left them in a quarter of an

hour, and presage, unless the country make an alarm, the cause is lost.

The philosophical reviewers manage their affairs better--hold off--avoid

committing themselves, but throw their _vis inertiæ_ into the opposite

scale, and neutralise the feelings which they cannot combat. To force

them to fight on disadvantageous ground is our policy. But we have more

sneakers after Ministerial favour than men who love their country, and

who upon a liberal scale would serve their party. For to force the Whigs

to avow an unpopular doctrine in popular assemblies, or to wrench the

government of such bodies from them, would be a _coup de maître_. But

they are alike destitute of manly resolution and sound policy. D--n the

whole nest of them! I have corrected the last of _Malachi_, and let the

thing take its chance. I have made enemies enough, and indisposed enough

of friends.

_March_ 8.--At the Court, though a teind day. A foolish thing happened

while the Court were engaged with the teinds. I amused myself with

writing on a sheet of paper notes on Frederick Maitland's account of the

capture of Bonaparte; and I have lost these notes--shuffled in perhaps

among my own papers, or those of the teind clerks. What a curious

document to be found in a process of valuation!

Being jaded and sleepy, I took up Le Due de Guise on Naples.[207] I

think this, with the old Memoires on the same subject which I have at

Abbotsford, would enable me to make a pretty essay for the _Quarterly_.

We must take up _Woodstock_ now in good earnest. Mr. Cowan, a good and

able man, is chosen trustee in Constable's affairs, with full power.

From what I hear, the poor man is not sensible of the nature of his own

situation; for myself, I have succeeded in putting the matters perfectly

out of my mind since I cannot help them, and have arrived at a

_flocci-pauci-nihili-pili-_fication of money, and I thank Shenstone for

inventing that long word.[208] They are removing the wine, etc., to the

carts, and you will judge if our flitting is not making a noise in the

world--or in the street at least.

_March_ 9.--I foresaw justly,

"When first I set this dangerous stone a-rolling,

'Twould fall upon myself."[209]

Sir Robert Dundas to-day put into my hands a letter of between thirty

and forty pages, in angry and bitter reprobation of _Malachi_, full of

general averments and very untenable arguments, all written at me by

name, but of which I am to have no copy, and which is to be shown to me

_in extenso_, and circulated to other special friends, to whom it may be

necessary to "give the sign to hate."[210] I got it at two o'clock, and

returned [it] with an answer four hours afterwards, in which I have

studied not to be tempted into either sarcastic or harsh

expressions.[211] A quarrel it is however, in all the forms, between my

old friend and myself, and his lordship's reprimand is to be _read out

in order_ to all our friends. They all know what I have said is true,

but that will be nothing to the purpose if they are desired to consider

it as false. As for Lord Melville, I do not wonder that he is angry,

though he has little reason, for he, our _watchman stented_, has from

time to time suffered all manner of tampering to go on under his nose

with the institutions and habits of Scotland. As for myself, I was quite

prepared for my share of displeasure. It is very curious that I should

have foreseen all this so distinctly as far back as 17th February.

Nobody at least can plague me for interest with Lord Melville as they

used to do. By the way, from the tone of his letter, I think his

lordship will give up the measure, and I will be the peace-offering. All

will agree to condemn me as too warm--too rash--and get rich on

privileges which they would not have been able to save but for a little

rousing of spirit, which will not perhaps fall asleep again.[212] A

gentleman called on the part of a Captain [Rutherford], to make inquiry

about the Border Rutherfords. Not being very _cleever_, as John Fraser

used to say, at these pedigree matters, referred him to Mrs. Dr. Russell

and Robt. Rutherford. The noble Captain conceits he has some title to

the honours of Lord Rutherford. Very odd--when there is a vacant or

dormant title in a Scottish family or _name_, everybody, and all

connected with the clan, conceive they have _quodam modo_ a right to it.

Not being engrossed by any individual, it communicates part of its

lustre to every individual in the tribe, as if it remained in common

stock for that purpose.

_March_ 10.--I am not made entirely in the same mould of passions like

other people. Many men would deeply regret a breach with so old a friend

as Lord Melville, and many men would be in despair at losing the good

graces of a Minister of State for Scotland, and all pretty visions about

what might be done for myself and my sons, especially Charles. But I

think my good lord doth ill to be angry, like the patriarch of old, and

I have, in my odd sans souciance character, a good handful of meal from

the grist of the Jolly Miller, who

"Once

Dwelled on the river Dee;

I care for nobody, no, not I,

Since nobody cares for me."

Breakfasted with me Mr. Franks, a young Irishman from Dublin, who

brought letters from Walter and Captain Longmore of the Royal Staff. He

has written a book of poetry, _Tales of Chivalry and Romance_, far from

bad, yet wants spirit. He talks of publishing his recollections in the

Peninsula, which must be interesting, for he has, I think, sense and

reflection.

Sandie Young[213] came in at breakfast-time with a Monsieur Brocque of

Montpelier.

Saw Sir Robert Dundas at Court, who condemns Lord Melville, and says he

will not show his letter to any one; in fact it would be exactly

placarding me in a private and confidential manner. He is to send my

letter to Lord Melville. Colin Mackenzie concurs in thinking Lord

Melville quite wrong. "_He must cool in the skin he het in._"

On coming home from the Court a good deal fatigued, I took a nap in my

easy-chair, then packed my books, and committed the refuse to Jock

Stevenson--

"Left not a limb on which a Dane could triumph."

Gave Mr. Gibson my father's cabinet, which suits a man of business well.

Gave Jock Stevenson the picture of my old favourite dog Camp, mentioned

in one of the introductions to _Marmion_, and a little crow-quill

drawing of Melrose Abbey by Nelson, whom I used to call the Admiral.

Poor fellow! he had some ingenuity, and was, in a moderate way, a good

penman and draughtsman. He left his situation of amanuensis to go into

Lord Home's militia regiment, but his dissipated habits got the better

of a strong constitution, and he fell into bad ways and poverty, and

died, I believe, in the hospital at Liverpool. Strange enough that Henry

Weber, who acted afterwards as my amanuensis for many years, had also a

melancholy fate ultimately. He was a man of very superior attainments,

an excellent linguist and geographer, and a remarkable antiquary. He

published a collection of ancient Romances, superior, I think, to the

elaborate Ritson. He also published an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher,

but too carelessly done to be reputable. He was a violent Jacobin, which

he thought he disguised from me, while I, who cared not a fig about the

poor young man's politics, used to amuse myself with teasing him. He was

an excellent and affectionate creature, but unhappily was afflicted with

partial insanity, especially if he used strong liquors, to which, like

others with that unhappy tendency, he was occasionally addicted. In

1814[214] he became quite insane, and, at the risk of my life, I had to

disarm him of a pair of loaded pistols, which I did by exerting the sort

of authority which, I believe, gives an effectual control in such cases.

His friends, who were respectable, placed him in the York Asylum, where

he pined away and died, I think, in 1814 or 1815.[215] My patronage in

this way has not been lucky to the parties protected. I hope poor George

Huntly Gordon will escape the influence of the evil star. He has no

vice, poor fellow, but his total deafness makes him helpless.

_March_ 11.--This day the Court rose after a long and laborious

sederunt. I employed the remainder of the day in completing a set of

notes on Captain Maitland's manuscript narrative of the reception of

Napoleon Bonaparte on board the _Bellerophon_. It had been previously in

the hands of my friend Basil Hall, who had made many excellent

corrections in point of style; but he had been hypercritical in wishing

(in so important a matter where everything depends on accuracy) this

expression to be altered for delicacy's sake,--that to be omitted for

fear of giving offence,--and that other to be abridged for fear of being

tedious. The plain sailor's narrative for me, written on the spot, and

bearing in its minuteness the evidence of its veracity.

Lord Elgin sent me, some time since, a curious account of his

imprisonment in France, and the attempts which were made to draw him

into some intrigue which might authorise treating him with rigour[216].

He called to-day and communicated some curious circumstances, on the

authority of Fouché, Denon, and others, respecting Bonaparte and the

empress Maria Louise, whom Lord Elgin had conversed with on the subject

in Italy. His conduct towards her was something like that of Ethwald to

Elburga, in Joanna Baillie's fine tragedy[217], making her postpone her

high rank by birth to the authority which he had acquired by his

talents. Dinner was usually announced for a particular hour, and

Napoleon's business often made him late. She was not permitted to sit

down to table, an etiquette which was reasonable enough. But from the

hour of dinner till the Emperor appeared she was to be in the act of

sitting down; that is to say, he was displeased if he found her engaged

with a book, with work, or with anything else. She was obliged to be in

a state of absolute "being about to sit down." She seemed a good deal

_gênée_ by something of that kind, though remembering with pride she had

been Empress, it might almost be said of the world. The rest for

to-morrow.

_March_ 12.--Resumed _Woodstock_, and wrote my task of six pages. I was

interrupted by a slumberous feeling which made me obliged to stop once

or twice. I shall soon have a remedy in the country, which affords the

pleasanter resource of a walk when such feelings come on. I hope I am

the reverse of the well-known line, "sleepy myself, to give my readers

sleep." I cannot _gurnalise_ at any rate, having wrought my eyes nearly

out.[218]

_March_ 13.--Wrote to the end of a chapter, and knowing no more than the

man in the moon what comes next, I will put down a few of Lord Elgin's

remembrances, and something may occur to me in the meanwhile. When

M[aria] Louise first saw B[onaparte], she was in the carriage with his

representative general, when she saw a horseman ride forward at the

gallop, passing and repassing the carriage in a manner which, joined to

the behaviour of her companion, convinced her who it was, especially as

he endeavoured, with a curiosity which would not have been tolerated in

another, to peep into the windows. When she alighted at the inn at----,

Napoleon presented himself, pulled her by the ear, and kissed her

forehead.

Bonaparte's happiest days passed away when he dismissed from about him

such men as Talleyrand and Fouché, whose questions and objections

compelled him to recur upon, modify, and render practicable the great

plans which his ardent conception struck out at a heat. When he had

Murat and such persons about him, who marvelled and obeyed, his

schemes, equally magnificent, were not so well matured, and ended in the

projector's ruin.

I have hinted in these notes that I am not entirely free from a sort of

gloomy fits, with a fluttering of the heart and depression of spirits,

just as if I knew not what was going to befall me. I can sometimes

resist this successfully, but it is better to evade than to combat it.

The hang-dog spirit may have originated in the confusion and chucking

about of our old furniture, the stripping of walls of pictures, and

rooms of ornaments; the leaving a house we have so long called our home

is altogether melancholy enough. I am glad Lady S. does not mind it, and

yet I wonder, too. She insists on my remaining till Wednesday, not

knowing what I suffer. Meanwhile, to make my recusant spirit do penance,

I have set to work to clear away papers and pack them for my journey.

What a strange medley of thoughts such a task produces! There lie

letters which made the heart throb when received, now lifeless and

uninteresting--as are perhaps their owners. Riddles which time has

read--schemes which he has destroyed or brought to maturity--memorials

of friendships and enmities which are now alike faded. Thus does the

ring of Saturn consume itself. To-day annihilates yesterday, as the old

tyrant swallowed his children, and the snake its tail. But I must say to

my _Gurnal_ as poor Byron did to Moore, "Damn it, Tom, don't be

poetical."

_Memorandum_.--I received some time since from Mr. Riddoch, of Falkirk,

a sort of iron mallet, said to have been found in the ruins of Grame's

Dike; there it was reclaimed about three months since by the gentleman

on whose lands it was found, a Doctor--by a very polite letter from his

man of business. Having unluckily mislaid his letter, and being totally

unable either to recollect the name of the proprietor or the

professional gentleman, I returned this day the piece of antiquity to

Mr. Riddoch, who sent it to me. Wrote at the same time to Tom Grahame

of Airth, mentioning what I had done. "Touch my honour, touch my

life--there is the spoon."[219]

_March_ 14.--J.B. called this morning to take leave, and receive

directions about proofs, etc. Talks of the uproar about _Malachi_; but I

am tired of _Malachi_--the humour is off, and I have said what I wanted

to say, and put the people of Scotland on their guard, as well as

Ministers, if they like to be warned. They are gradually destroying what

remains of nationality, and making the country _tabula rasa_ for

doctrines of bold innovation. Their loosening and grinding down all

those peculiarities which distinguished us as Scotsmen will throw the

country into a state in which it will be universally turned to

democracy, and instead of canny Saunders, they will have a very

dangerous North British neighbourhood.

Some [English] lawyer expressed to Lord Elibank an opinion, that at the

Union the English law should have been extended all over Scotland. "I

cannot say how that might have answered our purpose," said Lord Patrick,

who was never nonsuited for want of an answer, "but it would scarce have

suited _yours_, since by this time the _Aberdeen Advocates_[220] would

have possessed themselves of all the business in Westminster Hall."

What a detestable feeling this fluttering of the heart is! I know it is

nothing organic, and that it is entirely nervous; but the sickening

effects of it are dispiriting to a degree. Is it the body brings it on

the mind, or the mind that inflicts it upon the body? I cannot tell; but

it is a severe price to pay for the _Fata Morgana_ with which Fancy

sometimes amuses men of warm imaginations. As to body and mind, I fancy

I might as well inquire whether the fiddle or fiddlestick makes the

tune. In youth this complaint used to throw me into involuntary passions

of causeless tears. But I will drive it away in the country by exercise.

I wish I had been a mechanic: a turning-lathe or a chest of tools would

have been a God-send; for thought makes the access of melancholy rather

worse than better. I have it seldom, thank God, and, I believe, lightly,

in comparison of others.

It was the fiddle after all was out of order, not the fiddlestick; the

body, not the mind. I walked out; met Mrs. Skene, who took a turn with

me in Princes Street. Bade Constable and Cadell farewell, and had a

brisk walk home, which enables me to face the desolation here with more

spirit. News from Sophia. She has had the luck to get an anti-druggist

in a Dr. Gooch, who prescribes care for Johnnie instead of drugs, and a

little home-brewed ale instead of wine; and, like a liberal physician,

supplies the medicine he prescribes. As for myself, while I have scarce

stirred to take exercise for four or five days, no wonder I had the

mulligrubs. It is an awful sensation though, and would have made an

enthusiast of me, had I indulged my imagination on devotional subjects.

I have been always careful to place my mind in the most tranquil posture

which it can assume during my private exercises of devotion.

I have amused myself occasionally very pleasantly during the last few

days, by reading over Lady Morgan's novel of _O'Donnel_,[221] which has

some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description, and

in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being

so much pleased with it at first. There is a want of story, always fatal

to a book the first reading--and it is well if it gets a chance of a

second. Alas! poor novel! Also read again, and for the third time at

least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of _Pride and Prejudice_.

That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and

feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most

wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like

any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary

commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the

description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a

gifted creature died so early![222]

_March_ 15.--This morning I leave No. 39 Castle Street, for the last

time. "The cabin was convenient," and habit had made it agreeable to me.

I never reckoned upon a change in this particular so long as I held an

office in the Court of Session. In all my former changes of residence it

was from good to better; this is retrograding. I leave this house for

sale, and I cease to be an Edinburgh citizen, in the sense of being a

proprietor, which my father and I have been for sixty years at least. So

farewell, poor 39, and may you never harbour worse people than those who

now leave you! Not to desert the Lares all at once, Lady S. and Anne

remain till Sunday. As for me, I go, as aforesaid, this morning.

"Ha til mi tulidh'!--"[223]

_Abbotsford_, 9 _at night_.--The naturally unpleasant feelings which

influenced me in my ejectment, for such it is virtually, readily

evaporated in the course of the journey, though I had no pleasanter

companions than Mrs. Mackay, the housekeeper, and one of the maids; and

I have a shyness of disposition, which looks like pride, but it is not,

which makes me awkward in speaking to my household domestics. With an

out-of-doors labourer, or an old woman gathering sticks, I can talk for

ever. I was welcomed here on my arrival by the tumult, great of men and

dogs, all happy to see me. One of my old labourers killed by the fall of

a stone working at Gattonside Bridge. Old Will Straiton, my man of

wisdom and proverbs, also dead. He was entertaining from his importance

and self-conceit, but really a sensible old man. When he heard of my

misfortunes, he went to bed, and said he would not rise again, and kept

his word. He was very infirm when I last saw him. Tom Purdie in great

glory, being released from all farm duty, and destined to attend the

woods, and be my special assistant. The gardener Bogie is to take care

of what small farm we have left, which little would make me give up

entirely.

_March_ 16.--Pleasant days make short Journals, and I have little to say

to-day. I wrote in the morning at _Woodstock_; walked from one till

four; was down at Huntly Burn and paid my respects to the ladies. The

spring seems promising, and everything in great order. Visited Will

Straiton's widow, who squeezed out among many tears a petition for a

house. I do not think I shall let her have one, as she has a bad temper,

but I will help her otherwise; she is greedy besides, as was the defunct

philosopher William. In a year or two I shall have on the toft field a

gallant show of extensive woodland, sweeping over the hill, and its

boundaries carefully concealed. In the evening, after dinner, read Mrs.

Charlotte Smith's novel of _Desmond_[224]--decidedly the worst of her

compositions.

_March_ 17.--Sent off a packet to J.B.; only three pages copy, so must

work hard for a day or two. I wish I could wind up my bottom

handsomely--an odd but accredited phrase. The conclusion will be

luminous; we must try to make it dashing. Go spin, you jade, go spin.

Have a good deal to do between-hands in sorting up the newly arrived

accession of books.

I need not have exulted so soon in having attained ease and quiet. I am

robbed of both with a vengeance. A letter from Lockhart, with one

enclosed from Sophia, announces the medical people think the child is

visibly losing strength, that its walking becomes more difficult, and,

in short, that the spine seems visibly affected. They recommend tepid

baths in sea-water, so Sophia has gone down to Brighton, leaving

Lockhart in town, who is to visit her once a week. Here is my worst

augury verified.[225] The bitterness of this probably impending calamity

is extreme. The child was almost too good for this world; beautiful in

features; and, though spoiled by every one, having one of the sweetest

tempers, as well as the quickest intellect I ever saw; a sense of humour

quite extraordinary in a child, and, owing to the general notice which

was taken of him, a great deal more information than suited his years.

He was born in the eighth month, and such children are never

strong--seldom long-lived. I look on this side and that, and see nothing

but protracted misery, a crippled frame, and decayed constitution,

occupying the attention of his parents for years, and dying at the end

of that period, when their hearts were turned on him; or the poor child

may die before Sophia's confinement, and that may again be a dangerous

and bad affair; or she may, by increase of attention to him, injure her

own health. In short, to trace into how many branches such a misery may

flow is impossible. The poor dear love had so often a slow fever, that

when it pressed its little lips to mine, I always foreboded to my own

heart what all I fear are now aware of.

Lockhart writes me that Croker is the author of the Letters in the

_Courier_ against _Malachi_, and that Canning is to make another attack

on me in the House of Commons.[226] These things would make a man proud.

I will not answer, because I must show up Sir William Rae, and even Lord

Melville, and I have done enough to draw public attention, which is all

I want. Let them call me ungrateful, unkind, and all sorts of names, so

they keep their own fingers free of this most threatening measure. It is

very curious that each of these angry friends--Melville, Canning, and

Croker--has in former days appealed to me in confidence against each

other.

While I smoked my cigar after dinner, my mind has been running into four

threads of bitter fancies, or rather into three decidedly bitter, and

one that is indifferent. There is the distress incumbent on the country

by these most untimely proceedings, which I would stop with my life were

that adequate to prevent them. 2d, there is the unpleasant feeling of

seeing a number of valued friends pass from me; that I cannot help. 3d,

there is the gnawing misery about that sweet child and its parents. 4th,

there is the necessity of pursuing my own labours, for which perhaps I

ought to be thankful, since it always wrenches one's mind aside from

what it must dwell on with pain. It is odd that the state of excitation

with me rather increases than abates the power of labour, I must finish

_Woodstock_ well if I can: otherwise how the Philistines will rejoice!

_March_ 18.--Slept indifferently, and under the influence of Queen Mab,

seldom auspicious to me, dreamed of reading the tale of the Prince of

the Black Marble Islands to little Johnnie, extended on a paralytic

chair, and yet telling all his pretty stories about Ha-papa, as he calls

me, and Chiefswood--and waked to think I should see the little darling

no more, or see him as a thing that had better never have existed. Oh,

misery! misery! that the best I can wish for him is early death, with

all the wretchedness to his parents that is like to ensue! I intended to

have stayed at home to-day; but Tom more wisely had resolved that I

should walk, and hung about the window with his axe and my own in his

hand till I turned out with him, and helped to cut some fine paling.

_March_ 19.--I have a most melancholy letter from Anne. Lady S., the

faithful and true companion of my fortunes, good and bad, for so many

years, has, but with difficulty, been prevailed on to see Dr.

Abercrombie, and his opinion is far from favourable. Her asthmatic

complaints are fast terminating in hydropsy, as I have long suspected;

yet the avowal of the truth and its probable consequences are

overwhelming. They are to stay a little longer in town to try the

effects of a new medicine. On Wednesday they propose to return hither--a

new affliction, where there was enough before; yet her constitution is

so good that if she will be guided by advice, things may be yet

ameliorated. God grant it! for really these misfortunes come too close

upon each other.

A letter from Croker of a very friendly tone and tenor, which I will

answer accordingly, not failing, however, to let him know that if I do

not reply it is not for fear of his arguments or raillery, far less from

diffidence in my cause. I hope and trust it will do good.[227]

Maxpopple[228] and two of his boys arrived to take part of my poor

dinner. I fear the little fellows had little more than the needful, but

they had all I had to give them.

I wrote a good deal to-day notwithstanding heavy thoughts.

_March_ 20.--Despatched proofs and copy this morning; and Swanston, the

carpenter, coming in, I made a sort of busy idle day of it with altering

and hanging pictures and prints, to find room for those which came from

Edinburgh, and by dint of being on foot from ten to near five, put all

things into apple-pie order. What strange beings we are! The serious

duties I have on hand cannot divert my mind from the most melancholy

thoughts; and yet the talking with these workmen, and the trifling

occupation which they give me, serves to dissipate my attention. The

truth is, I fancy that a body under the impulse of violent motion cannot

be stopped or forced back, but may indirectly be urged into a different

channel. In the evening I read, and sent off my Sheriff-Court processes.

I have a sort of grudging to give reasons why _Malachi_ does not reply

to the answers which have been sent forth. I don't know--I am strongly

tempted--but I won't. To drop the tone might seem mean, and perhaps to

maintain it would only exasperate the quarrel, without producing any

beneficial results, and might be considered as a fresh insult by my

alienated friends, so on the whole I won't.

The thing has certainly had more effect than it deserves; and I suspect

my Ministerial friends, if they love me less, will not hold me cheaper

for the fight I have made. I am far from saying _oderint dum emerint_,

but there is a great difference betwixt that and being a mere protégé, a

poor broken-down man, who was to be assisted when existing

circumstances, that most convenient of all apologies and happiest of all

phrases, would permit.

_March_ 21.--Perused an attack on myself, done with as much ability as

truth, by no less a man than Joseph Hume, the night-work man of the

House of Commons, who lives upon petty abuses, and is a very useful man

by so doing. He has had the kindness to say that I am interested in

keeping up the taxes; I wish I had anything else to do with them than to

pay them. But he lies, and is an ass, and not worth a man's thinking

about. Joseph Hume, indeed!--I say Joseph Hum,--and could add a Swiftian

rhyme, but forbear.

Busy in unpacking and repacking. I wrote five pages of _Woodstock_,

which work begins

"To appropinque an end."[229]

_March_ 22.--A letter from Lord Downshire's man of business about funds

supposed to belong to my wife, or to the estate of my late

brother-in-law. The possessor of the secret wants some reward. If any is

granted, it should be a percentage on the net sum received, with the

condition no cure--no pay. I expect Lady S., and from Anne's last letter

hope to find her better than the first anticipation led me to dread.

Sent off proofs and copy, and shall indulge a little leisure to-day to

collect my ideas and stretch my limbs. I am again far before the press.

_March_ 23.--Lady Scott arrived yesterday to dinner. She was better than

I expected, but Anne, poor soul, looked very poorly, and had been much

worried with the fatigue and discomfort of the last week. Lady S. takes

the digitalis, and, as she thinks, with advantage, though the medicine

makes her very sick. Yet, on the whole, things are better than my gloomy

apprehensions had anticipated.

I wrote to Lockhart and to Lord Downshire's Agent,--G. Handley, Esq.,

Pentonville, London.

Took a good brushing walk, but not till I had done a good task.

_March_ 24.--Sent off copy, proofs, etc. J.B. clamorous for a motto.

It is foolish to encourage people to expect mottoes and such-like

decoraments. You have no credit for success in finding them, and there

is a disgrace in wanting them. It is like being in the habit of showing

feats of strength, which you at length gain praise by accomplishing,

while some shame occurs in failure.

_March_ 25.--The end winds out well enough. I have almost finished

to-night; indeed I might have done so had I been inclined, but I had a

walk in a hurricane of snow for two hours and feel a little tired. Miss

Margaret Ferguson came to dinner with us.[230]

_March_ 26.--Here is a disagreeable morning, snowing and hailing, with

gleams of bright sunshine between, and all the ground white, and all the

air frozen. I don't like this jumbling of weather. It is ungenial, and

gives chilblains. Besides, with its whiteness, and its coldness, and its

glister, and its discomfort, it resembles that most disagreeable of all

things, a vain, cold, empty, beautiful woman, who has neither mind nor

heart, but only features like a doll. I do not know what is so like this

disagreeable day, when the sun is so bright, and yet so uninfluential,

that

"One may gaze upon its beams

Till he is starved with cold."

No matter, it will serve as well as another day to finish _Woodstock_.

Walked out to the lake, and coquetted with this disagreeable weather,

whereby I catch chilblains in my fingers and cold in my head. Fed the

swans.

Finished _Woodstock_, however, _cum tota sequela_ of title-page,

introduction, etc., and so, as Dame Fortune says in _Quevedo_,

"Go wheel, and may the devil drive thee."[231]

_March_ 27.--Another bright cold day. I answered two modest requests

from widow ladies. One, whom I had already assisted in some law

business, on the footing of her having visited my mother, requested me

to write to Mr. Peel, saying, on her authority, that her second son, a

youth of infinite merit and accomplishment, was fit for any situation in

a public office, and that I requested he might be provided accordingly.

Another widowed dame, whose claim is having read _Marmion_ and the _Lady

of the Lake_, besides a promise to read all my other works--Gad, it is a

rash engagement!--demands that I shall either pay £200 to get her cub

into some place or other, or settle him in a seminary of education.

Really this is very much after the fashion of the husbandman of Miguel

Turra's requests of Sancho when Governor.[232] "Have you anything else

to ask, honest man?" quoth Sancho. But what are the demands of an honest

man to those of an honest woman, and she a widow to boot? I do believe

your destitute widow, especially if she hath a charge of children, and

one or two fit for patronage, is one of the most impudent animals

living.

Went to Galashiels and settled the dispute about Sandie's wall.

_March_ 28.--We have now been in solitude for some time--myself nearly

totally so, excepting at meals, or on a call as yesterday from Henry and

William Scott of Harden. One is tempted to ask himself, knocking at the

door of his own heart, Do you love this extreme loneliness? I can answer

conscientiously, _I do_. The love of solitude was with me a passion of

early youth; when in my teens, I used to fly from company to indulge in

visions and airy castles of my own, the disposal of ideal wealth, and

the exercise of imaginary power. This feeling prevailed even till I was

eighteen, when love and ambition awakening with other passions threw me

more into society, from which I have, however, at times withdrawn

myself, and have been always even glad to do so. I have risen from a

feast satiated; and unless it be one or two persons of very strong

intellect, or whose spirits and good-humour amuse me, I wish neither to

see the high, the low, nor the middling class of society. This is a

feeling without the least tinge of misanthropy, which I always consider

as a kind of blasphemy of a shocking description. If God bears with the

very worst of us, we may surely endure each other. If thrown into

society, I always have, and always will endeavour to bring pleasure with

me, at least to show willingness to please. But for all this "I had

rather live alone," and I wish my appointment, so convenient otherwise,

did not require my going to Edinburgh. But this must be, and in my

little lodging I will be lonely enough.

Had a very kind letter from Croker disowning the least idea of personal

attack in his answer to _Malachi_.

Reading at intervals a novel called _Granby_; one of that very difficult

class which aspires to describe the actual current of society, whose

colours are so evanescent that it is difficult to fix them on the

canvas. It is well written, but over-laboured--too much attempt to put

the reader exactly up to the thoughts and sentiments of the parties. The

women do this better: Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen have all had their

portraits of real society, far superior to anything man, vain man, has

produced of the like nature.[233]

_March_ 29.--Worked in the morning. Had two visits from Colonels Russell

and Ferguson. Walked from one till half-past four. A fine, flashy,

disagreeable day; snow-clouds sweeping past among sunshine, driving down

the valley, and whitening the country behind them.

Mr. Gibson came suddenly in after dinner. Brought very indifferent news

from Constable's house. It is not now hoped that they will pay above

three or four shillings in the pound. Robinson supposed not to be much

better.

Mr. G. goes to London immediately, and is to sell _Woodstock_ to

Robinson if he can, otherwise to those who will, John Murray, etc. This

work may fail, perhaps, though better than some of its predecessors. If

so, we must try some new manner. I think I could catch the dogs yet.

A beautiful and perfect lunar rainbow to-night.

_March_ 30.--Mr. Gibson looks unwell, and complains of cold--bitter bad

weather for his travelling, and he looks but frail.

These indifferent news he brought me affect me but to a little degree.

It is being too confident to hope to ensure success in the long series

of successive struggles which lie before me. But somehow, I do fully

entertain the hope of doing a good deal.

_March_ 31.--

"He walked and wrote poor soul, what then?

Why then, he wrote and walked again."

But I am begun _Nap. Bon._ again, which is always a change, because it

gives a good deal of reading and research, whereas _Woodstock_ and such

like, being extempore from my mother-wit, is a sort of spinning of the

brains, of which a man tires. The weather seems milder to-day.

FOOTNOTES:

[198] The full-length picture of Sir Walter (with, the two dogs, Camp

and the deerhound) by Raeburn, painted in 1809, was at this time given

to Mr. Skene, and remained in his possession till 1831, when it was sent

to Abbotsford, where it now hangs.--See Letter, Scott to Skene, under

January 16th, 1831.

[199] Spean a wean, _i.e._ wean a child.

[200] Archibald Skirving (1749-1819), well known as a portrait-painter

in chalk and crayons in Edinburgh in the early part of this century.

[201] H.W. Williams, a native of Wales, who settled in Edinburgh at the

beginning of this century. His _Travels in Italy and Greece_ were

published in 1820, and the _Views in Greece_ in 1827. This work was

completed in 1829, the year in which he died.

[202] Vols. i. and ii. were published in 1802.

[203] _Kain_ in Scotch law means payment in _kind. Carriages_ in the

same phraseology stands for services in driving with horse and cart.

[204] Ballad of _Hardyknute_, slightly altered.--J.G.L.

[205] Sir W. Knighton was Physician and Private Secretary to George IV.

Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 289) says no one had more influence with the

King. Sir William died in 1836; his _Memoirs_ were published in 1838,

edited by his widow.

[206] Ossian.--J.G.L.

[207] Pastoret: _Le Duc de Guise à Naples, etc., en_ 1647 _et_ 1648.

8vo, 1825; also _Memoires relating his passage to Naples and heading the

Second Revolt of that people_. Englished, sm. 8vo, 1669.

"The Reviewal then meditated was afterwards published in _Foreign

Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. p 355, but not included in the _Misc. Prose

Works."_--_Abbotsford Library Catalogue_, p. 36.

[208] W. Shenstone's _Essays_ (1765), p. 115, or _Works_ (1764-69), vol.

iii. p. 49.

I am indebted to Dr. J.A.H. Murray for this reference, which he kindly

supplied from the materials for his great English Dictionary on

Historical Principles.

[209] _King Henry VIII._, Act v. Sc. 2, slightly altered.--J.G.L.

[210] "Watch the sign to hate."--Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_.

[211] See _Arniston Memoirs_, 8vo, Edin. 1888, for text of Lord

Melville's letter and Sir Walter's reply, pp. 315-326.

[212] "Seldom has any political measure called forth so strong and so

universal an expression of public opinion. In every city and in every

county public meetings were held to deprecate the destruction of the one

pound and guinea notes."--_Annual Register_ (1826), p. 24.

[213] Alex. Young of Harburn, a steady Whig of the old school, and a

steady and esteemed friend of Sir Walter's.--J.G.L.

[214] See _Life_, vol. iv. pp. 146-148.

[215] Henry Weber died in 1818.

[216] See Life of Bonaparte. _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xi. pp.

346-351.--J.G.L.

[217] _Plays on the Passions_, 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1802, vol. ii. pp.

211-215.

[218] He had, however, snatched a moment to write the following playful

note to Mr. Sharpe, little dreaming that the sportive allusion to his

return in May would be so sadly realised:--

"MY DEAR CHARLES,--You promised when I _displenished_ this house that

you would accept of the prints of Roman antiquities, which I now send. I

believe they were once in some esteem, though now so detestably smoked

that they will only suit your suburban villa in the Cowgate when you

remove to that classical residence. I also send a print which is an old

favourite of mine, from the humorous correspondence between Mr.

Mountebank's face and the monkey's. I leave town to-day or to-morrow at

furthest. When I return in May I shall be

Bachelor Bluff, bachelor Bluff,

Hey for a heart that's rugged and tough.

I shall have a beefsteak and a bottle of wine of a Sunday, which I hope

you will often take share of,--Being with warm regard always yours,

WALTER SCOTT."--Sharpe's _Correspondence_, vol. ii. pp. 359-60.

[219] Apropos of the old Scotch lady who had surreptitiously pocketed a

silver spoon, one of a set of a dozen which were being passed round for

examination in an auction room. Suspicion resting on her, she was asked

to allow her person to be searched, but she indignantly produced the

article, with "Touch my honour," etc.

[220] The _Attorneys_ of Aberdeen are styled _advocates_. This valuable

privilege is said to have been bestowed at an early period by some

(sportive) monarch.--J.G.L.

[221] This clever book was published in 1814: at the same time as

_Waverley_. Had it contained nothing else than the sketch of Bran, the

great Irish wolf-hound, it would have commended itself to Scott. The

authoress died in 1859.

[222] It is worth noting that a quarter of a century after Sir Walter

had written these lines, we find Macaulay stating that, in his opinion,

"there are in the world no compositions which approach nearer

perfection." Scott had already criticised Miss Austen in the 27th No. of

the _Quarterly_. She died in 1817.

[223] "I return no more,"--see _Mackrimmon's Lament_ by

Scott.--_Poetical Works_, vol. xi. p. 332.

[224] Published as far back as 1792. An appreciative criticism on Mrs.

Smith's works will be found in Scott's _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol.

iv. pp. 58-70.

[225] See this Journal, 2 December last.

[226] The letters of _Malachi_ were treated by some members of the House

of Commons as incentives to rebellion, and senators gravely averred that

not many years ago they would have subjected the author to condign

punishment.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, declared that he did not dread

"the flashing of that Highland claymore though evoked from its scabbard

by the incantations of the mightiest magician of the age."--Speech of

Rt. Hon. F.J. Robinson.

[227] Both letters are quoted in Lockhart's _Life_, vol. viii. pp.

299-305. See also _Croker's Correspondence and Diaries_, edited by Louis

J. Jennings, 3 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1884, vol. i. pp. 315-319.

[228] W. Scott, Esq., afterwards of Raeburn, Sir Walter's

Sheriff-substitute.

[229] Hudibras.--J.G.L.

[230] One of Sir Walter's kindly "_weird sisters_" and neighbours,

daughters of Professor Ferguson. They had occupied the house at

Toftfield (on which Scott at the ladies' request bestowed the name of

Huntly Burn) from the spring of 1818. Miss Margaret has been described

as extremely like her brother Sir Adam in the turn of thought and of

humour.--See _Life_, vol. vi. p. 322.

[231] _Fortune in her Wits, and the Hour of all Men_, Quevedo's Works,

Edin. 1798, vol. iii. p. 107.

[232] _Don Quixote_, Pt. II. cap. 47.

[233] _Granby_ was written by a young man, Thos. H. Lister, some years

afterwards known as the author of _The Life and Administration of the

First Earl of Clarendon_, 3 vols. 8vo, 1837-38. Mr. Lister died in his

41st year in 1842.

APRIL.

_April_ 1.--_Ex uno die disce omnes._ Rose at seven or sooner, studied,

and wrote till breakfast with Anne, about a quarter before ten. Lady

Scott seldom able to rise till twelve or one. Then I write or study

again till one. At that hour to-day I drove to Huntly Burn, and walked

home by one of the hundred and one pleasing paths which I have made

through the woods I have planted--now chatting with Tom Purdie, who

carries my plaid, and speaks when he pleases, telling long stories of

hits and misses in shooting twenty years back--sometimes chewing the cud

of sweet and bitter fancy--and sometimes attending to the humours of two

curious little terriers of the Dandie Dinmont breed, together with a

noble wolf-hound puppy which Glengarry has given me to replace Maida.

This brings me down to the very moment I do tell--the rest is prophetic.

I will feel sleepy when this book is locked, and perhaps sleep until

Dalgleish brings the dinner summons. Then I will have a chat with Lady

S. and Anne; some broth or soup, a slice of plain meat--and man's chief

business, in Dr. Johnson's estimation, is briefly despatched. Half an

hour with my family, and half an hour's coquetting with a cigar, a

tumbler of weak whisky and water, and a novel perhaps, lead on to tea,

which sometimes consumes another half hour of chat; then write and read

in my own room till ten o'clock at night; a little bread and then a

glass of porter, and to bed.

And this, very rarely varied by a visit from some one, is the tenor of

my daily life--and a very pleasant one indeed, were it not for

apprehensions about Lady S. and poor Johnnie Hugh. The former will, I

think, do well--for the latter--I fear--I fear--

_April_ 2.--I am in a wayward mood this morning. I received yesterday

the last proof-sheets of _Woodstock_, and I ought to correct them. Now,

this _ought_ sounds as like as possible to _must_, and _must_ I cannot

abide. I would go to Prester John's country of free good-will, sooner

than I would _must_ it to Edinburgh. Yet this is all folly, and silly

folly too; and so _must_ shall be for once obeyed after I have thus

written myself out of my aversion to its peremptory sound. Corrected the

said proofs till twelve o'clock--when I think I will treat resolution,

not to a dram, as the drunken fellow said after he had passed the

dram-shop, but to a walk, the rather that my eyesight is somewhat

uncertain and wavering. I think it must be from the stomach. The whole

page waltzes before my eyes. J.B. writes gloomily about _Woodstock_; but

commends the conclusion. I think he is right. Besides, my manner is

nearly caught, and, like Captain Bobadil[234], I have taught nearly a

hundred gentlemen to fence very nearly, if not altogether, as well as

myself. I will strike out something new.

_April_ 3.--I have from Ballantyne and Gibson the extraordinary and

gratifying news that _Woodstock_ is sold for £8228 in all, ready

money--a matchless sum for less than three months' work[235]. If

Napoleon does as well, or near it, it will put the trust affairs in high

flourish. Four or five years of leisure and industry would, with [such]

success, amply replace my losses, and put me on a steadier footing than

ever. I have a curious fancy: I will go set two or three acorns, and

judge by their success in growing whether I will succeed in clearing my

way or not. I have a little toothache keeps me from working much

to-day, besides I sent off, per Blucher, copy for _Napoleon_, as well as

the d--d proofs.

A blank forenoon! But how could I help it, Madam Duty? I was not lazy;

on my soul I was not. I did not cry for half holiday for the sale of

_Woodstock_. But in came Colonel Ferguson with Mrs. Stewart of

Blackhill, or hall, or something, and I must show her the garden,

pictures, etc. This lasts till one; and just as they are at their lunch,

and about to go off, guard is relieved by the Laird and Lady Harden, and

Miss Eliza Scott--and my dear Chief, whom I love very much, though a

little obsidional or so, remains till three. That same crown, composed

of the grass which grew on the walls of besieged places, should be

offered to visitors who stay above an hour in any eident[236] person's

house. Wrote letters this evening.

_April_ 4.--Wrote two pages in the morning. Then went to Ashestiel in

the sociable, with Colonel Ferguson. Found my cousin Russell settled

kindly to his gardening and his projects. He seems to have brought home

with him the enviable talent of being interested and happy in his own

place. Ashestiel looks worst, I think, at this period of the year; but

is a beautiful place in summer, where I passed nine happy years. Did I

ever pass unhappy years anywhere? None that I remember, save those at

the High School, which I thoroughly detested on account of the

confinement. I disliked serving in my father's office, too, from the

same hatred to restraint. In other respects, I have had unhappy

days--unhappy weeks--even, on one or two occasions, unhappy months; but

Fortune's finger has never been able to play a dirge on me for a quarter

of a year together.

I am sorry to see the Peel-wood, and other natural coppice, decaying and

abridged about Ashestiel--

'The horrid plough has razed the green,

Where once my children play'd;

The axe has fell'd the hawthorn screen,

The schoolboy's summer shade.'[237]

There was a very romantic pasturage called the Cow-park, which I was

particularly attached to, from its wild and sequestered character.

Having been part of an old wood which had been cut down, it was full of

copse--hazel, and oak, and all sorts of young trees, irregularly

scattered over fine pasturage, and affording a hundred intricacies so

delicious to the eye and the imagination. But some misjudging friend had

cut down and cleared away without mercy, and divided the varied and

sylvan scene, which was divided by a little rivulet, into the two most

formal things in nature--a thriving plantation, many-angled as usual,

and a park laid down in grass; wanting therefore the rich graminivorous

variety which Nature gives its carpet, and having instead a braird of

six days' growth--lean and hungry growth too--of ryegrass and clover. As

for the rill, it stagnates in a deep square ditch, which silences its

prattle, and restrains its meanders with a witness. The original scene

was, of course, imprinted still deeper on Russell's mind than mine, and

I was glad to see he was intensely sorry for the change.

_April_ 5.--Rose late in the morning, past eight, to give the cold and

toothache time to make themselves scarce, which they have obligingly

done. Yesterday every tooth on the right side of my head was absolutely

waltzing. I would have drawn by the half dozen, but country dentists are

not to be lippened to.[238] To-day all is quiet, but a little swelling

and stiffness in the jaw. Went to Chiefswood at one, and marked with

regret forty trees indispensably necessary for paling--much like drawing

a tooth; they _are_ wanted and will never be better, but I am

avaricious of grown trees, having so few.

Worked a fair task; dined, and read Clapperton's journey and Denham's

into Bornou. Very entertaining, and less botheration about mineralogy,

botany, and so forth, than usual. Pity Africa picks up so many brave

men, however. Work in the evening.

_April_ 6.--Wrote in the morning. Went at one to Huntly Burn, where I

had the great pleasure to hear, through a letter from Sir Adam, that

Sophia was in health, and Johnnie gaining strength. It is a fine

exchange from deep and aching uncertainty on so interesting a subject,

to the little spitfire feeling of "Well, but they might have taken the

trouble to write"; but so wretched a correspondent as myself has not

much to say, so I will just grumble sufficiently to maintain the

patriarchal dignity.

I returned in time to work, and to receive a shoal of things from J.B.

Among others, a letter from an Irish lady, who, for the _beaux yeux_,

which I shall never look upon, desires I will forthwith send her all the

Waverley Novels, which are published, with an order to furnish her with

all others in course as they appear, which she assures me will be an

_era_ in her life. She may find out some other epocha.

_April_ 7.--Made out my morning's task; at one drove to Chiefswood, and

walked home by the Rhymer's Glen, Mar's Lee, and Haxell-Cleugh. Took me

three hours. The heath gets somewhat heavier for me every year--but

never mind, I like it altogether as well as the day I could tread it

best. My plantations are getting all into green leaf, especially the

larches, if theirs may be called leaves, which are only a sort of hair,

and from the number of birds drawn to these wastes, I may congratulate

myself on having literally made the desert to sing. As I returned, there

was, in the phraseology of that most precise of prigs in a white

collarless coat and _chapeau bas_, Mister Commissary Ramsay--"a rather

dense inspissation of rain." Deil care.

"Lord, who would live turmoiled in the Court,

That might enjoy such quiet walks as these?"[239]

Yet misfortune comes our way too. Poor Laidlaw lost a fine prattling

child of five years old yesterday.

It is odd enough--Iden, the Kentish Esquire, has just made the

ejaculation which I adopted in the last page, when he kills Cade, and

posts away up to Court to get the price set upon his head. Here is a

letter come from Lockhart, full of Court news, and all sort of

news,--best is his wife is well, and thinks the child gains in health.

Lockhart erroneously supposes that I think of applying to Ministers

about Charles, and that notwithstanding Croker's terms of pacification I

should find _Malachi_ stick in my way. I would not make such an

application for millions; I think if I were to ask patronage it would

[not] be through them, for some time at least, and I might have better

access.[240]

_April_ 8.--We expect _a raid_ of folks to visit us this morning, whom

we must have _dined_ before our misfortunes. Save time, wine, and money,

these misfortunes--and so far are convenient things. Besides, there is a

dignity about them when they come only like the gout in its mildest

shape, to authorise diet and retirement, the night-gown and the velvet

shoe; when the one comes to chalkstones, and the other to prison,

though, there would be the devil. Or compare the effects of Sieur Gout

and absolute poverty upon the stomach--the necessity of a bottle of

laudanum in the one case, the want of a morsel of meat in the other.

Laidlaw's infant, which died on Wednesday, is buried to-day. The people

coming to visit prevent my going, and I am glad of it. I hate

funerals--always did. There is such a mixture of mummery with real

grief--the actual mourner perhaps heart-broken, and all the rest making

solemn faces, and whispering observations on the weather and public

news, and here and there a greedy fellow enjoying the cake and wine. To

me it is a farce full of most tragical mirth, and I am not sorry (like

Provost Coulter[241]) but glad that I shall not see my own. This is a

most unfilial tendency of mine, for my father absolutely loved a

funeral; and as he was a man of a fine presence, and looked the mourner

well, he was asked to every interment of distinction. He seemed to

preserve the list of a whole bead-roll of cousins, merely for the

pleasure of being at their funerals, which he was often asked to

superintend, and I suspect had sometimes to pay for. He carried me with

him as often as he could to these mortuary ceremonies; but feeling I was

not, like him, either useful or ornamental, I escaped as often as I

could.

I saw the poor child's funeral from a distance. Ah, that Distance! What

a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy or sorrow, smoothing all

asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all absurdness,

softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of

the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the

gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of the

spectators,--the glass held high, and the distant cheers as it is

swallowed, should be only a sketch, not a finished Dutch picture, when

it becomes brutal and boorish. Scotch psalmody, too, should be heard

from a distance. The grunt and the snuffle, and the whine and the

scream, should be all blended in that deep and distant sound, which,

rising and falling like the Eolian harp, may have some title to be

called the praise of our Maker. Even so the distant funeral: the few

mourners on horseback, with their plaids wrapped around them--the father

heading the procession as they enter the river, and pointing out the

ford by which his darling is to be carried on the last long road--not

one of the subordinate figures in discord with the general tone of the

incident--seeming just accessories, and no more--this _is_ affecting.

_April_ 9.--I worked at correcting proofs in the morning, and, what is

harder, at correcting manuscript, which fags me excessively. I was dead

sick of it by two o'clock, the rather as my hand, O revered "Gurnal," be

it said between ourselves, gets daily worse.

Lockhart's _Review_.[242] Don't like his article on Sheridan's life.

There is no breadth in it, no general views, the whole flung away in

smart but party criticism. Now, no man can take more general and liberal

views of literature than J.G.L. But he lets himself too easily into that

advocatism of style, which is that of a pleader, not a judge or a

critic, and is particularly unsatisfactory to the reader. Lieut.-Col.

Ferguson dined here.

_April_ 10.--Sent off proofs and copy galore before breakfast, and might

be able to give idleness a day if I liked. But it is as well reading for

_Boney_ as for anything else, and I have a humour to make my amusement

useful. Then the day is changeable, with gusts of wind, and I believe a

start to the garden will be my best out-of-doors exercise. No thorough

hill-expedition in this gusty weather.

_April_ 11.--Wrought out my task, although I have been much affected

this morning by the Morbus, as I call it. Aching pain in the back,

rendering one posture intolerable, fluttering of the heart, idle fears,

gloomy thoughts and anxieties, which if not unfounded are at least

bootless. I have been out once or twice, but am driven in by the rain.

Mercy on us, what poor devils we are! I shook this affection off,

however. Mr. Scrope and Col. Ferguson came to dinner, and we twaddled

away the evening well enough.

_April_ 12.--I have finished my task this morning at half-past

eleven--easily and early--and, I think, not amiss. I hope J.B. will make

some great points of admiration!!!--otherwise I will be disappointed. If

this work answers--if it _but_ answers, it must set us on our legs; I am

sure worse trumpery of mine has had a great run. Well, I will console

myself and do my best! But fashion changes, and I am getting old, and

may become unpopular, but it is time to cry out when I am hurt. I

remember with what great difficulty I was brought to think myself

something better than common,[243]--and now I will not in mere faintness

of heart give up good hopes. So Fortune protect the bold. I have

finished the whole introductory sketch of the Revolution--too long for

an introduction. But I think I may now go to my solitary walk.

_April_ 13.--On my return from my walk yesterday I learnt with great

concern the death of my old friend, Sir Alexander Don. He cannot have

been above six-or seven-and-forty. Without being much together, we had,

considering our different habits, lived in much friendship, and I

sincerely regret his death. His habits were those of a gay man, much

connected with the turf; but he possessed strong natural parts, and in

particular few men could speak better in public when he chose. He had

tact, wit, power of sarcasm, and that indescribable something which

marks the gentleman. His manners in society were extremely pleasing, and

as he had a taste for literature and the fine arts, there were few more

pleasant companions, besides being a highly-spirited, steady, and

honourable man. His indolence prevented his turning these good parts

towards acquiring the distinction he might have attained. He was among

the _détenus_ whom Bonaparte's iniquitous commands confined so long in

France;[244] and coming there into possession of a large estate in right

of his mother, the heiress of the Glencairn family, he had the means of

being very expensive, and probably then acquired those gay habits which

rendered him averse to serious business. Being our member for

Roxburghshire, his death will make a stir amongst us. I prophesy

Harden[245] will be here to talk about starting his son Henry.

Accordingly the Laird and Lady called. I exhorted him to write to Lord

Montagu[246] instantly. I do not see what they can do better, and unless

some pickthank intervene to insinuate certain irritating suspicions, I

suppose Lord M. will make no objection. There can be no objection to

Henry Scott for birth, fortune, or political principle; and I do not see

where we could get a better representative.

_April_ 14.--Wrote to Lord M. last night. I hope they will keep the

peace in the county. I am sure it would be to me a most distressing

thing if Buccleuch and Harden were to pull different ways, being so

intimate with both families.

I did not write much yesterday, not above two pages and a half. I have

begun _Boney_, though, and _c'est toujours quelque chose_. This morning

I sent off proofs and manuscript. Had a letter from the famous Denis

Davidoff, the Black Captain, whose abilities as a partisan were so much

distinguished during the retreat from Moscow. If I can but wheedle him

out of a few anecdotes, it would be a great haul.

A kind letter from Colin Mack[enzie]; he thinks the Ministry will not

push the measure against Scotland. I fear they will; there is usually an

obstinacy in weakness. But I will think no more about it. Time draws on.

I have been here a month. Another month carries me to be a hermit in the

city instead of the country. I could scarce think I had been here a

week. I wish I was able, even at great loss, to retire from Edinburgh

entirely. Here is no bile, no visits, no routine, and yet on the whole,

things are as well perhaps as they are.

_April_ 15.--Received last night letters from Sir John Scott Douglas,

and from that daintiest of Dandies, Sir William Elliot of Stobs,

canvassing for the county. Young Harry's[247] the lad for me. But will

he be the lad for Lord Montagu?--there is the point. I should have given

him a hint to attend to Edgerston. Perhaps being at Minto, and not

there, may give offence, and a bad report from that quarter would play

the devil. It is rather too late to go down and tell them this, and, to

say truth, I don't like the air of making myself busy in the matter.

Poor Sir Alexander Don died of a disease in the heart; the body was

opened, which was very right. Odd enough, too, to have a man, probably a

friend two days before, slashing at one's heart as it were a bullock's.

I had a letter yesterday from John Gibson. The House of Longman and Co.

guarantee the sale [of _Woodstock_] to Hurst, and take the work, if

Hurst and Robinson (as is to be feared) can make no play.

Also I made up what was due of my task both for 13th and 14th. So hey

for a Swiftianism--

"I loll in my chair,

And around me I stare

With a critical air,

Like a calf at a fair;

And, say I, Mrs. Duty,

Good-morrow to your beauty,

I kiss your sweet shoe-tie,

And hope I can suit ye."

Fair words butter no parsnips, says Duty; don't keep talking then, but

get to your work again. Here is a day's task before you--the siege of

Toulon. Call you that a task? d---- me, I'll write it as fast as _Boney_

carried it on.

_April_ 16.--I am now far ahead with _Nap._ I wrote a little this

morning, but this forenoon I must write letters, a task in which I am

far behind.

"Heaven sure sent letters for some wretch's plague."[248]

Lady Scott seems to make no way, yet can scarce be said to lose any. She

suffers much occasionally, especially during the night. Sleeps a great

deal when at ease; all symptoms announce water upon the chest. A sad

prospect.

In the evening a despatch from Lord Melville, written with all the

familiarity of former times, desiring me to ride down and press Mr.

Scott of Harden to let Henry stand, and this in Lord Montagu's name as

well as his own, so that the two propositions cross each other on the

road, and Henry is as much desired by the Buccleuch interest as he

desires their support.

_Jedburgh, April_ 17.--Came over to Jedburgh this morning, to breakfast

with my good old friend Mr. Shortreed, and had my usual warm reception.

Lord Gillies held the Circuit Court, and there was no criminal trial for

any offence whatsoever. I have attended these circuits with tolerable

regularity since 1792, and though there is seldom much of importance to

be done, yet I never remember before the Porteous roll[249] being quite

blank. The judge was presented with a pair of white gloves, in

consideration of its being a maiden circuit. Harden came over and talked

about his son's preferment, naturally much pleased.

Received £100 from John Lockhart, for review of Pepys;[250] but this is

by far too much; £50 is plenty. Still I must impeticos the gratility for

the present,[251]--for Whitsunday will find me only with £300 in hand,

unless Blackwood settles a few scores of pounds for _Malachi_.

Wrote a great many letters. Dined with the Judge, where I met the

disappointed candidate, Sir John Scott Douglas, who took my excuse like

a gentleman. Sir William Elliot, on the other hand, was, being a fine

man, very much out of sorts, that having got his own consent, he could

not get that of the county. He showed none of this, however, to me.

_April_ 18.--This morning I go down to Kelso from Jedburgh to poor Don's

funeral. It is, I suppose, forty years since I saw him first. I was

staying at Sydenham, a lad of fourteen, or by 'r Lady some sixteen; and

he, a boy of six or seven, was brought to visit me on a pony, a groom

holding the leading rein--and now, I, an old grey man, am going to lay

him in his grave. Sad work. I detest funerals; there is always a want of

consistency; it is a tragedy played by strolling performers, who are

more likely to make you laugh than cry. No chance of my being made to

laugh to-day. The very road I go is a road of grave recollections. Must

write to Charles seriously on the choice of his profession, and I will

do it now.

[_Abbotsford_,] _April_ 19.--Returned last night from the house of death

and mourning to my own, now the habitation of sickness and anxious

apprehension. Found Lady S. had tried the foxglove in quantity, till it

made her so sick she was forced to desist. The result cannot yet be

judged. Wrote to Mrs. Thomas Scott to beg her to let her daughter Anne,

an uncommonly, sensible, steady, and sweet-tempered girl, come and stay

with us a season in our distress, who I trust will come forthwith.

Two melancholy things. Last night I left my pallet in our family

apartment, to make way for a female attendant, and removed to a

dressing-room adjoining, when to return, or whether ever, God only can

tell. Also my servant cut my hair, which used to be poor Charlotte's

personal task. I hope she will not observe it.

The funeral yesterday was very mournful; about fifty persons present,

and all seemed affected. The domestics in particular were very much so.

Sir Alexander was a kind, though an exact master. It was melancholy to

see those apartments, where I have so often seen him play the graceful

and kind landlord filled with those who were to carry him to his long

home.

There was very little talk of the election, at least till the funeral

was over.

_April_ 20.--Lady Scott's health in the same harassing state of

uncertainty, yet on my side with more of hope than I had two days since.

Another death; Thomas Riddell, younger of Camiston, Sergeant-Major of

the Edinburgh Troop in the sunny days of our yeomanry, and a very good

fellow.

The day was so tempting that I went out with Tom Purdie to cut some

trees, the rather that my task was very well advanced. He led me into

the wood, as the blind King of Bohemia was led by his four knights into

the thick of the battle at Agincourt or Crecy,[252] and then, like the

old King, "I struck good strokes more than one," which is manly

exercise.

_April_ 21.--This day I entertained more flattering hopes of Lady

Scott's health than late events permitted. I went down to Mertoun with

Colonel Ferguson, who returned to dine here, which consumed time so much

that I made a short day's work.

Had the grief to find Lady Scott had insisted on coming downstairs and

was the worse of it. Also a letter from Lockhart, giving a poor account

of the infant. God help us! earth cannot.

_April_ 22.--Lady Scott continues very poorly. Better news of the child.

Wrought a good deal to-day, rather correcting sheets and acquiring

information than actually composing, which is the least toilsome of the

three.

J.G.L. kindly points out some solecisms in my style, as "amid" for

"amidst," "scarce" for "scarcely." "Whose," he says, is the proper

genitive of "which" only at such times as "which" retains its quality of

impersonification. Well! I will try to remember all this, but after all

I write grammar as I speak, to make my meaning known, and a solecism in

point of composition, like a Scotch word in speaking, is indifferent to

me. I never learned grammar; and not only Sir Hugh Evans but even Mrs.

Quickly might puzzle me about Giney's case and horum harum horum.[253] I

believe the Bailiff in _The Good-natured Man_ is not far wrong when he

says, "One man has one way of expressing himself, and another another,

and that is all the difference between them."[254] Went to Huntly Burn

to-day and looked at the Colonel's projected approach. I am sure if the

kind heart can please himself he will please me.

_April_ 23.--A glorious day, bright and brilliant, and, I fancy, mild.

Lady Scott is certainly better, and has promised not to attempt quitting

her room.

Henry Scott has been here, and his canvass comes on like a moor burning.

_April_ 24.--Good news from Brighton. Sophia is confined; both she and

her baby are doing well, and the child's name is announced to be

Walter--a favourite name in our family, and I trust of no bad omen. Yet

it is no charm for life. Of my father's family I was the second Walter,

if not the third. I am glad the name came my way, for it was borne by my

father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather; also by the

grandsire of that last-named venerable person who was the first laird of

Raeburn.

Hurst and Robinson, the Yorkshire tykes, have failed after all their

swaggering, and Longman and Co. take _Woodstock_. But if _Woodstock_ and

_Napoleon_ take with the public I shall care little about their

insolvency, and if they do not, I don't think their solvency would have

lasted long. Constable is sorely broken down.

"Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart

That's sorry yet for thee."[255]

His conduct has not been what I deserved at his hand, but, I believe

that, walking blindfold himself, he misled me without _malice prepense_.

It is best to think so at least, unless the contrary be demonstrated. To

nourish angry passions against a man whom I really liked would be to lay

a blister on my own heart.

_April_ 25.--Having fallen behind on the 23d, I wrought pretty hard

yesterday; but I had so much reading, and so many proofs to correct,

that I did not get over the daily task, so am still a little behind,

which I shall soon make up. I have got _Nap._, d--n him, into Italy,

where with bad eyes and obscure maps, I have a little difficulty in

tracing out his victorious chess-play.

Lady Scott was better yesterday, certainly better, and was sound asleep

when I looked in this morning. Walked in the afternoon. I looked at a

hooded crow building in the thicket with great pleasure. It is a shorter

date than my neighbour Torwoodlee[256] thought of, when he told me, as

I was bragging a little of my plantations, that it would be long ere

crows built in them.

_April_ 26.--Letters from Walter and Lockharts; all well and doing well.

Lady S. continues better, so the clouds are breaking up. I made a good

day's work yesterday, and sent off proofs, letters, and copy this

morning; so, if this fine day holds good, I will take a drive at one.

There is an operation called putting to rights--_Scotticè_, _redding

up_--which puts me into a fever. I always leave any attempt at it half

executed, and so am worse off than before, and have only embroiled the

fray. Then my long back aches with stooping into the low drawers of old

cabinets, and my neck is strained with staring up to their attics. Then

you are sure never to get the thing you want. I am certain they creep

about and hide themselves. Tom Moore[257] gave us the insurrection of

the papers. That was open war, but this is a system of privy plot and

conspiracy, by which those you seek creep out of the way, and those you

are not wanting perk themselves in your face again and again, until at

last you throw them into some corner in a passion, and then they are the

objects of research in their turn. I have read in a French Eastern tale

of an enchanted person called _L'homme qui cherche_, a sort of "Sir Guy

the Seeker," always employed in collecting the beads of a chaplet,

which, by dint of gramarye, always dispersed themselves when he was

about to fix the last upon the string. It was an awful doom;

transmogrification into the Laidleyworm of Spindlestaneheugh[258] would

have been a blessing in comparison. Now, the explanation of all this is,

that I have been all this morning seeking a parcel of sticks of sealing

wax which I brought from Edinburgh, and the "_Weel Brandt and Vast

houd_"[259] has either melted without the agency of fire or barricaded

itself within the drawers of some cabinet, which has declared itself in

a state of insurrection. A choice subject for a journal, but what better

have I?

I did not quite finish my task to-day, nay, I only did one third of it.

It is so difficult to consult the maps after candles are lighted, or to

read the Moniteur, that I was obliged to adjourn. The task is three

pages or leaves of my close writing per diem, which corresponds to about

a sheet (16 pages) of _Woodstock_, and about 12 of _Bonaparte_, which is

a more comprehensive page. But I was not idle neither, and wrote some

_Balaam_[260] for Lockhart's _Review_. Then I was in hand a leaf above

the tale, so I am now only a leaf behind it.

_April_ 27.--This is one of those abominable April mornings which

deserve the name of _Sans Cullotides_, as being cold, beggarly, coarse,

savage, and intrusive. The earth lies an inch deep with snow, to the

confusion of the worshippers of Flora. By the way, Bogie attended his

professional dinner and show of flowers at Jedburgh yesterday. Here is a

beautiful sequence to their _floralia_. It is this uncertainty in April,

and the descent of snow and frost when one thinks themselves clear of

them, and that after fine encouraging weather, that destroys our

Scottish fruits and flowers. It is as imprudent to attach yourself to

flowers in Scotland as to a caged bird; the cat, sooner or later, snaps

up one, and these--_Sans Cullotides_--annihilate the other. It was but

yesterday I was admiring the glorious flourish of the pears and

apricots, and now hath come the killing frost.[261]

But let it freeze without, we are comfortable within. Lady Scott

continues better, and, we may hope, has got the turn of her disease.

_April_ 28.--Beautiful morning, but ice as thick as pasteboard, too

surely showing that the night has made good yesterday's threat.

Dalgleish, with his most melancholy face, conveys the most doleful

tidings from Bogie. But servants are fond of the woful, it gives such

consequence to the person who communicates bad news.

Wrote two letters, and read till twelve, and then for a stout walk among

the plantations till four. Found Lady Scott obviously better, I think,

than I had left her in the morning. In walking I am like a spavined

horse, and heat as I get on. The flourishing plantations around me are a

great argument for me to labour hard. "_Barbarus has segetes?_" I will

write my finger-ends off first.

_April_ 29.--I was always afraid, privately, that _Woodstock_ would not

stand the test. In that case my fate would have been that of the

unfortunate minstrel trumpeter Maclean at the battle of Sheriffmuir--

"By misfortune he happened to fa', man;

By saving his neck

His trumpet did break,

And came off without music at a', man."[262]

J.B. corroborated my doubts by his raven-like croaking and criticising;

but the good fellow writes me this morning that he is written down an

ass, and that the approbation is unanimous. It is but Edinburgh, to be

sure; but Edinburgh has always been a harder critic than London. It is a

great mercy, and gives encouragement for future exertion. Having written

two leaves this morning, I think I will turn out to my walk, though two

hours earlier than usual. Egad, I could not persuade myself that it was

such bad _Balaam_ after all.

_April_ 30.--I corrected this morning a quantity of proofs and copy, and

dawdled about a little, the weather of late becoming rather milder,

though not much of that. Methinks Duty looks as if she were but

half-pleased with me; but would the Pagan bitch have me work on the

Sunday?

FOOTNOTES:

[234] Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_, Act IV, Sc. 5.

[235] The reader will understand that the Novel was sold for behoof of

James Ballantyne & Co.'s creditors, and that this sum includes the cost

of printing the first edition as well as paper.--J.G.L.

[236] Eident, _i.e._ eagerly diligent.--J.G.L.

[237] These lines slightly altered from Logan.--J.G.L.

[238] Lippened, _i.e._ relied upon.--J.G.L.

[239] 2 _King Henry VI_., Act IV. Sc. 10, slightly varied.

[240] In a letter of the same day he says--"My interest, as you might

have known, lies Windsor way."--J.G.L.

[241] William Coulter, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, died in office, April

1810, and was said to have been greatly consoled on his deathbed by the

prospect of so grand a funeral as must needs occur in his case.--Scott

_used to take him off_ as saying, at some public meeting, "Gentlemen,

though doomed to the trade of a stocking-weaver, I was born with the

soul of a _Sheepio_" (Scipio).

[242] _Quarterly Review_, No. 66: Lockhart's review of Sheridan's Life.

[243] It is interesting to read what James Ballantyne has recorded on

this subject.--"Sir Walter at all times laboured under the strangest

delusion, as to the merits of his own works. On this score he was not

only inaccessible to compliments, but even insensible to the truth; in

fact, at all times, he hated to talk of any of his productions; as, for

instance, he greatly preferred Mrs. Shelley's _Frankenstein_ to any of

his own romances. I remember one day, when Mr. Erskine and I were dining

with him, either immediately before or immediately after the publication

of one of the best of the latter, and were giving it the high praise we

thought it deserved, he asked us abruptly whether we had read

_Frankenstein_. We answered that we had not. 'Ah,' he said, 'have

patience, read _Frankenstein_, and you will be better able to judge

of----.' You will easily judge of the disappointment thus prepared for

us. When I ventured, as I sometimes did, to press him on the score of

the reputation he had gained, he merely asked, as if he determined to be

done with the discussion, 'Why, what is the value of a reputation which

probably will not last above one or two generations?' One morning, I

recollect, I went into his library, shortly after the publication of the

_Lady of the Lake_, and finding Miss Scott there, who was then a very

young girl, I asked her, 'Well, Miss Sophia, how do you like the _Lady

of the Lake_, with which everybody is so much enchanted?' Her answer

was, with affecting simplicity, 'Oh, I have not read it. Papa says

there's nothing so bad for young girls as reading bad poetry.' Yet he

could not be said to be hostile to compliments in the abstract--nothing

was so easy as to flatter him about a farm or a field, and his manner on

such an occasion plainly showed that he was really open to such a

compliment, and liked it. In fact, I can recall only one instance in

which he was fairly cheated into pleasure by a tribute paid to his

literary merit, and it was a striking one. Somewhere betwixt two and

three years ago I was dining at the Rev. Dr. Brunton's, with a large and

accomplished party, of whom Dr. Chalmers was one. The conversation

turned upon Sir Walter Scott's romances generally, and the course of it

led me very shortly afterwards to call on Sir Walter, and address him as

follows--I knew the task was a bold one, but I thought I saw that I

should get well through it--'Well, Sir Walter,' I said, 'I was dining

yesterday, where your works became the subject of very copious

conversation.' His countenance immediately became overcast--and his

answer was, 'Well, I think, I must say your party might have been better

employed.' 'I knew it would be your answer,'--the conversation

continued,--'nor would I have mentioned it, but that Dr. Chalmers was

present, and was by far the most decided in his expressions of pleasure

and admiration of any of the party.' This instantly roused him to the

most vivid animation. 'Dr. Chalmers?' he repeated; 'that throws new

light on the subject--to have produced any effect upon the mind of such

a man as Dr. Chalmers is indeed something to be proud of. Dr. Chalmers

is a man of the truest genius. I will thank you to repeat all you can

recollect that he said on the subject.' I did so accordingly, and I can

recall no other similar instance."--_James Ballantyne's MS._

[244] For the life led by many of the _détenus_ in France before 1814,

and for anecdotes regarding Sir Alexander Don, see Sir James Campbell of

Ardkinglas' _Memoirs_, 2 vols. 8vo, London 1832, vol. ii. chaps. 7 and

8.

[245] Hugh Scott of Harden, afterwards (in 1835) Lord

Polwarth--succeeded by his son Henry, in 1841.

[246] Henry Jas. Scott, who succeeded to the Barony of Montagu on the

demise of his grandfather, the Duke of Montagu, was the son of Henry, 3d

Duke of Buccleuch. At Lord M.'s death in 1845 the Barony of Montagu

expired.

[247] Henry Scott, afterwards Lord Polwarth.

[248] Slightly altered from Pope's _Eloisa to Abelard_.

[249] The Catalogue of Criminals brought before the Circuit Courts at

one time was termed in Scotland the Portuous Roll. The name appears to

have been derived from the practice in early times of delivering to the

judges lists of Criminals for Trials _in Portu_, or in the gateway as

they entered the various towns on their circuit ayres.--Chambers's _Book

of Scotland_, p. 310.

Jamieson suggests that the word may have come from "Porteous" as

originally applied to a Breviary, or portable book of prayers, which

might easily be transferred to a portable roll of indictments.

[250] _Quarterly Review_, No. 66, Pepys' _Diary_.

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

[252] See Froissart's account of the Battle of Crecy, Bk. i. cap. 129.

[253] _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act iv. Sc. 1.

[254] See Goldsmith's Comedy, Act III.

[255] _King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 2.

[256] James Pringle, Convener of Selkirkshire for more than half a

century. For an account of the Pringles of Torwoodlee, see Mr. Craig

Brown's _History of Selkirkshire_, vol. i. pp. 459-470.

[257] "_The Insurrection of the Papers--a Dream_." _The Twopenny

Post-Bag_, 12mo, London, 1812.

[258] The well-known ballads on these two North-country legends were

published by M.G. Lewis and Mr. Lambe, of Norham. "Sir Guy," in the

_Tales of Wonder_, and "The Worm," in Ritson's _Northumberland

Garland_.--See Child's _English and Scottish Ballads_, 8 vols. 12mo,

Boston, 1857, vol. i. p. 386.

[259] _Fyn Segellak wel brand en vast houd_: old brand used by

sealing-wax makers.

[260] _Balaam_ is the cant name in a Newspaper Office for asinine

paragraphs, about monstrous productions of Nature and the like, kept

standing in type to be used whenever the real news of the day leaves an

awkward space that must be filled up somehow.--J.G.L.

[261] _Henry VIII._ Act III. Sc. 2.

[262] Ritson, _Scottish Songs_, xvi.

MAY.

_May_ 1.--I walked to-day to the western corner of the Chiefswood

plantation, and marked out a large additional plantation to be drawn

along the face of the hill. It cost me some trouble to carry the

boundaries out of the eye, for nothing is so paltry as a plantation of

almost any extent if its whole extent lies defined to the eye. By

availing myself of the undulations of the ground I think I have avoided

this for the present; only when seen from the Eildon Hills the cranks

and turns of the enclosure will seem fantastic, at least until the trees

get high.

This cost Tom and me three or four hours. Lieut.-Colonel Ferguson joined

us as we went home, and dined at Abbotsford.

My cousin, Barbara Scott of Raeburn, came here to see Lady S. I think

she was shocked with the melancholy change. She insisted upon walking

back to Lessudden House, making her walk 16 or 18 miles, and though the

carriage was ordered she would not enter it.

_May_ 2.--Yesterday was a splendid May day--to-day seems inclined to be

_soft_, as we call it; but _tant mieux_. Yesterday had a twang of frost

in it. I must get to work and finish Boaden's _Life of Kemble_, and

Kelly's _Reminiscences_,[263] for the _Quarterly_.

I wrote and read for three hours, and then walked, the day being soft

and delightful; but alas! all my walks are lonely from the absence of my

poor companion. She does not suffer, thank God, but strength must fail

at last. Since Sunday there has been a gradual change--very

gradual--but, alas! to the worse. My hopes are almost gone. But I am

determined to stand this grief as I have done others.

_May_ 3,--Another fine morning. I answered a letter from Mr. Handley,

who has taken the pains to rummage the Chancery Records until he has

actually discovered the fund due to Lady Scott's mother, £1200; it seems

to have been invested in the estates of a Mr. Owen, as it appears for

Madame Charpentier's benefit, but, she dying, the fund was lost sight of

and got into Chancery, where I suppose it must have accumulated, but I

cannot say I understand the matter; at a happier moment the news would

have given poor Charlotte much pleasure, but now--it is a day too late.

_May_ 4.--On visiting Lady Scott's sick-room this morning I found her

suffering, and I doubt if she knew me. Yet, after breakfast, she seemed

serene and composed. The worst is, she will not speak out about the

symptoms under which she labours. Sad, sad work; I am under the most

melancholy apprehension, for what constitution can hold out under these

continued and wasting attacks?

My niece, Anne Scott, a prudent, sensible, and kind young woman, arrived

to-day, having come down to assist us in our distress from so far as

Cheltenham. This is a great consolation.

_May_ 5.--Haunted by gloomy thoughts; but I corrected proofs from seven

to ten, and wrote from half-past ten to one. My old friend Sir Adam

called, and took a long walk with me, which was charity. His gaiety

rubbed me up a little. I had also a visit from the Laird and Lady of

Harden. Henry Scott carries the county without opposition.

_May_ 6.--- The same scene of hopeless (almost) and unavailing anxiety.

Still welcoming me with a smile, and asserting she is better. I fear the

disease is too deeply entwined with the principles of life. Yet the

increase of good weather, especially if it would turn more genial,

might, I think, aid her excellent constitution. Still labouring at this

_Review_, without heart or spirits to finish it. I am a tolerable Stoic,

but preach to myself in vain.

"Since these things are necessities,

Then let us meet them like necessities."[264]

And so we will.

_May_ 7.--Hammered on at the _Review_ till my backbone ached. But I

believe it was a nervous affection, for a walk cured it. Sir Adam and

the Colonel dined here. So I spent the evening as pleasantly as I well

could, considering I am so soon to leave my own house, and go like a

stranger to the town of which I have been so long a citizen, and leave

my wife lingering, without prospect of recovery, under the charge of two

poor girls. _Talia cogit dura necessitas._

_May_ 8.--I went over to the election at Jedburgh. There was a numerous

meeting; the Whigs, who did not bring ten men to the meeting, of course

took the whole matter under their patronage, which was much of a piece

with the Blue Bottle drawing the carriage. I tried to pull up once or

twice, but quietly, having no desire to disturb the quiet of the

election. To see the difference of modern times! We had a good dinner,

and excellent wine; and I had ordered my carriage at half-past seven,

almost ashamed to start so soon. Everybody dispersed at so early an

hour, however, that when Henry had left the chair, there was no carriage

for me, and Peter proved his accuracy by showing me it was but a

quarter-past seven. In the days I remember they would have kept it up

till day-light; nor do I think poor Don would have left the chair before

midnight. Well, there is a medium. Without being a veteran Vice, a grey

Iniquity, like Falstaff, I think an occasional jolly bout, if not

carried to excess, improved society; men were put into good humour; when

the good wine did its good office, the jest, the song, the speech, had

double effect; men were happy for the night, and better friends ever

after, because they had been so.

_May_ 9.--My new Liverpool neighbour, Mr. Bainbridge, breakfasts here

to-day with some of his family. They wish to try the fishing in

Cauldshields Loch, and [there is] promise of a fine soft morning. But

the season is too early.

They have had no sport accordingly after trying with Trimmers. Mr.

Bainbridge is a good cut of John Bull--plain, sensible, and downright;

the maker of his own fortune, and son of his own works.

_May_ 10.--To-morrow I leave my home. To what scene I may suddenly be

recalled, it wrings my heart to think. If she would but be guided by the

medical people, and attend rigidly to their orders, something might be

hoped, but she is impatient with the protracted suffering, and no

wonder. Anne has a severe task to perform, but the assistance of her

cousin is a great comfort. Baron Weber, the great composer, wants me

(through Lockhart) to compose something to be set to music by him, and

sung by Miss Stephens--as if I cared who set or who sung any lines of

mine. I have recommended instead Beaumont and Fletcher's unrivalled song

in the _Nice Valour_:

"Hence, all ye vain delights," etc.

[_Edinburgh_],[265] _May_ 11.--

"Der Abschiedstag ist da,

Schwer liegt er auf den Herzen--schwer."[266]

Charlotte was unable to take leave of me, being in a sound sleep, after

a very indifferent night. Perhaps it was as well. Emotion might have

hurt her; and nothing I could have expressed would have been worth the

risk. I have foreseen, for two years and more, that this menaced event

could not be far distant. I have seen plainly, within the last two

months, that recovery was hopeless. And yet to part with the companion

of twenty-nine years when so very ill--that I did not, could not

foresee.[267] It withers my heart to think of it, and to recollect that

I can hardly hope again to seek confidence and counsel from that ear to

which all might be safely confided. But in her present lethargic state,

what would my attentions have availed? and Anne has promised close and

constant intelligence. I must dine with James Ballantyne to-day _en

famille_. I cannot help it; but would rather be at home and alone.

However, I can go out too. I will not yield to the barren sense of

hopelessness which struggles to invade me. I passed a pleasant day with

honest J.B., which was a great relief from the black dog which would

have worried me at home. We were quite alone.

_[Edinburgh,] May_ 12.--Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with

Touchstone, "When I was at home I was in a better place,"[268] and yet

this is not by any means to be complained of. Good apartments, the

people civil and apparently attentive. No appearance of smoke, and

absolute warrandice against my dreaded enemies, bugs. I must, when there

is occasion, draw to my own Bailie Nicol Jarvie's consolation, "One

cannot carry the comforts of the Saut-Market about with one." Were I at

ease in mind, I think the body is very well cared for. I have two steady

servants, a man and woman, and they seem to set out sensibly enough.

Only one lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, a clergyman; and despite his

name, said to be a quiet one.

_May_ 13.--The projected measure against the Scottish bank-notes has

been abandoned, the resistance being general. _Malachi_ might clap his

wings upon this, but, alas! domestic anxiety has cut his comb.

I think very lightly in general of praise; it costs men nothing, and is

usually only lip-salve. They wish to please, and must suppose that

flattery is the ready road to the good will of every professor of

literature. Some praise, however, and from some people, does at once

delight and strengthen the mind, and I insert in this place the

quotation with which Ld. C. Baron Shepherd concluded a letter concerning

me to the Chief Commissioner: "_Magna etiam illa laus et admirabilis

videri solet tulisse casus sapienter adversos, non fractum esse fortunâ,

retinuisse in rebus asperis dignitatem._"[269] I record these words, not

as meriting the high praise they imply, but to remind me that such an

opinion being partially entertained of me by a man of a character so

eminent, it becomes me to make my conduct approach as much as possible

to the standard at which he rates it.

As I must pay back to Terry some cash in London, £170, together with

other matters here, I have borrowed from Mr. Alexander Ballantyne the

sum of £500, upon a promissory note for £512, 10s. payable 15th November

to him or his order. If God should call me before that time, I request

my son Walter will, in reverence to my memory, see that Mr. Alexander

Ballantyne does not suffer for having obliged me in a sort of

exigency--he cannot afford it, and God has given my son the means to

repay him.

_May_ 14.--A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who are shining so

brightly on these dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were looking

as bright on the banks of the Tweed; but look where you will, Sir Sun,

you look upon sorrow and suffering. Hogg was here yesterday in danger,

from having obtained an accommodation of £100 from Mr. Ballantyne, which

he is now obliged to repay. I am unable to help the poor fellow, being

obliged to borrow myself. But I long ago remonstrated against the

transaction at all, and gave him £50 out of my pocket to avoid granting

the accommodation, but it did no good.

_May_ 15.--Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at

Abbotsford.

[_Abbotsford_,] _May_ 16.--She died at nine in the morning, after being

very ill for two days,--easy at last.

I arrived here late last night. Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics,

which returned on my arrival. Her broken accents were like those of a

child, the language, as well as the tones, broken, but in the most

gentle voice of submission. "Poor mamma--never return again--'gone for

ever--a better place." Then, when she came to herself, she spoke with

sense, freedom, and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. It

would have been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger--what was it

then to the father and the husband? For myself, I scarce know how I

feel, sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, sometimes as weak as the wave

that breaks on it.

I am as alert at thinking and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet,

when I contrast what this place now is, with what it has been not long

since, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my

family--all but poor Anne, an impoverished and embarrassed man, I am

deprived of the sharer of my thoughts and counsels, who could always

talk down my sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the heart

that must bear them alone. Even her foibles were of service to me, by

giving me things to think of beyond my weary self-reflections.

I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not, my Charlotte--my

thirty years' companion. There is the same symmetry of form, though

those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic--but that

yellow masque, with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather

than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively

expression? I will not look on it again. Anne thinks her little changed,

because the latest idea she had formed of her mother is as she appeared

under circumstances of sickness and pain. Mine go back to a period of

comparative health. If I write long in this way, I shall write down my

resolution, which I should rather write up, if I could. I wonder how I

shall do with the large portion of thoughts which were hers for thirty

years. I suspect they will be hers yet for a long time at least. But I

will not blaze cambric and crape in the public eye like a disconsolate

widower, that most affected of all characters.

_May_ 17.--- Last night Anne, after conversing with apparent ease,

dropped suddenly down as she rose from the supper-table, and lay six or

seven minutes as if dead. Clarkson, however, has no fear of these

affections.

_May_ 18.--Another day, and a bright one to the external world, again

opens on us; the air soft, and the flowers smiling, and the leaves

glittering. They cannot refresh her to whom mild weather was a natural

enjoyment. Cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth

must have her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not the bride of

my youth, the mother of my children, that will be laid among the ruins

of Dryburgh, which we have so often visited in gaiety and pastime. No,

no. She is sentient and conscious of my emotions somewhere--somehow;

_where_ we cannot tell; _how_ we cannot tell; yet would I not at this

moment renounce the mysterious yet certain hope that I shall see her in

a better world, for all that this world can give me. The necessity of

this separation,--that necessity which rendered it even a relief,--that

and patience must be my comfort. I do not experience those paroxysms of

grief which others do on the same occasion. I can exert myself and speak

even cheerfully with the poor girls. But alone, or if anything touches

me--the choking sensation. I have been to her room: there was no voice

in it--no stirring; the pressure of the coffin was visible on the bed,

but it had been removed elsewhere; all was neat as she loved it, but

all was calm--calm as death. I remembered the last sight of her; she

raised herself in bed, and tried to turn her eyes after me, and said,

with a sort of smile, "You all have such melancholy faces." They were

the last words I ever heard her utter, and I hurried away, for she did

not seem quite conscious of what she said. When I returned, immediately

[before] departing, she was in a deep sleep. It is deeper now. This was

but seven days since.

They are arranging the chamber of death; that which was long the

apartment of connubial happiness, and of whose arrangements (better than

in richer houses) she was so proud. They are treading fast and thick.

For weeks you could have heard a foot-fall. Oh, my God!

_May_ 19.--Anne, poor love, is ill with her exertions and

agitation--cannot walk--and is still hysterical, though less so. I

advised flesh-brush and tepid bath, which I think will bring her about.

We speak freely of her whom we have lost, and mix her name with our

ordinary conversation. This is the rule of nature. All primitive people

speak of their dead, and I think virtuously and wisely. The idea of

blotting the names of those who are gone out of the language and

familiar discourse of those to whom they were dearest is one of the

rules of ultra-civilisation which, in so many instances, strangle

natural feeling by way of avoiding a painful sensation. The Highlanders

speak of their dead children as freely as of their living, and mention

how poor Colin or Robert would have acted in such or such a situation.

It is a generous and manly tone of feeling; and, so far as it may be

adopted without affectation or contradicting the general habits of

society, I reckon on observing it.

_May_ 20.--To-night, I trust, will bring Charles or Lockhart, or both;

at least I must hear from them. A letter from Violet [Lockhart] gave us

the painful intelligence that she had not mentioned to Sophia the

dangerous state in which her mother was. Most kindly meant, but

certainly not so well judged. I have always thought that truth, even

when painful, is a great duty on such occasions, and it is seldom that

concealment is justifiable.

Sophia's baby was christened on Sunday, 14th May, at Brighton, by the

name of Walter Scott.[270] May God give him life and health to wear it

with credit to himself and those belonging to him. Melancholy to think

that the next morning after this ceremony deprived him of so near a

relation. Sent Mr. Curle £11 to remit Mrs. Bohn, York Street, Covent

Garden, for books--I thought I had paid the poor woman before.

_May_ 21.--Our sad preparations for to-morrow continue. A letter from

Lockhart; doubtful if Sophia's health or his own state of business will

let him be here. If things permit he comes to-night. From Charles not a

word; but I think I may expect him. I wish to-morrow were over; not that

I fear it, for my nerves are pretty good, but it will be a day of many

recollections.

_May_ 22.--Charles arrived last night, much affected of course. Anne had

a return of her fainting-fits on seeing him, and again upon seeing Mr.

Ramsay, the gentleman who performs the service.[271] I heard him do so

with the utmost propriety for my late friend, Lady Alvanley,[272] the

arrangement of whose funeral devolved upon me. How little I could guess

when, where, and with respect to whom I should next hear those solemn

words. Well, I am not apt to shrink from that which is my duty, merely

because it is painful; but I wish this day over. A kind of cloud of

stupidity hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be

doing and talking about.

_May_ 23.--About an hour before the mournful ceremony of yesterday,

Walter arrived, having travelled express from Ireland on receiving the

news. He was much affected, poor fellow, and no wonder. Poor Charlotte

nursed him, and perhaps for that reason she was ever partial to him. The

whole scene floats as a sort of dream before me--the beautiful day, the

grey ruins covered and hidden among clouds of foliage and flourish,

where the grave, even in the lap of beauty, lay lurking and gaped for

its prey. Then the grave looks, the hasty important bustle of men with

spades and mattocks--the train of carriages--the coffin containing the

creature that was so long the dearest on earth to me, and whom I was to

consign to the very spot which in pleasure-parties we so frequently

visited. It seems still as if this could not be really so. But it is

so--and duty to God and to my children must teach me patience.

Poor Anne has had longer fits since our arrival from Dryburgh than

before, but yesterday was the crisis. She desired to hear prayers read

by Mr. Ramsay, who performed the duty in a most solemn manner. But her

strength could not carry it through. She fainted before the service was

concluded.[273]

_May_ 24.--Slept wretchedly, or rather waked wretchedly, all night, and

was very sick and bilious in consequence, and scarce able to hold up my

head with pain. A walk, however, with my sons did me a great deal of

good; indeed their society is the greatest support the world can afford

me. Their ideas of everything are so just and honourable, kind towards

their sisters, and affectionate to me, that I must be grateful to God

for sparing them to me, and continue to battle with the world for their

sakes, if not for my own.

_May_ 25.--I had sound sleep to-night, and waked with little or nothing

of the strange, dreamy feeling which made me for some days feel like one

bewildered in a country where mist or snow has disguised those features

of the landscape which are best known to him.

Walter leaves me to-day; he seems disposed to take interest in country

affairs, which will be an immense resource, supposing him to tire of the

army in a few years. Charles, he and I, went up to Ashestiel to call

upon the Misses Russell, who have kindly promised to see Anne on

Tuesday. This evening Walter left us, being anxious to return to his

wife as well as to his regiment. We expect he will be here early in

autumn, with his household.

_May_ 26.--A rough morning, and makes me think of St. George's Channel,

which Walter must cross to-night or to-morrow to get to Athlone. The

wind is almost due east, however, and the channel at the narrowest point

between Port-Patrick and Donaghadee. His absence is a great blank in our

circle, especially, I think, to his sister Anne, to whom he shows

invariably much kindness. But indeed they do so without exception each

towards the other; and in weal or woe have shown themselves a family of

love. No persuasion could force on Walter any of his poor mother's

ornaments for his wife. He undid a reading-glass from the gold chain to

which it was suspended, and agreed to give the glass to Jane, but would

on no account retain the chain. I will go to town on Monday and resume

my labours. Being of a grave nature, they cannot go against the general

temper of my feelings, and in other respects the exertion, as far as I

am concerned, will do me good; besides, I must re-establish my fortune

for the sake of the children, and of my own character. I have not

leisure to indulge the disabling and discouraging thoughts that press on

me. Were an enemy coming upon my house, would I not do my best to fight,

although oppressed in spirits, and shall a similar despondency prevent

me from mental exertion? It shall not, by Heaven! This day and to-morrow

I give to the currency of the ideas which have of late occupied my mind,

and with Monday they shall be mingled at least with other thoughts and

cares. Last night Charles and I walked late on the terrace at Kaeside,

when the clouds seemed accumulating in the wildest masses both on the

Eildon Hills and other mountains in the distance. This rough morning

reads the riddle.

Dull, drooping, cheerless has the day been. I cared not to carry my own

gloom to the girls, and so sate in my own room, dawdling with old

papers, which awakened as many stings as if they had been the nest of

fifty scorpions. Then the solitude seemed so absolute--my poor Charlotte

would have been in the room half-a-score of times to see if the fire

burned, and to ask a hundred kind questions. Well, that is over--and if

it cannot be forgotten, must be remembered with patience.

_May_ 27.--A sleepless night. It is time I should be up and be doing,

and a sleepless night sometimes furnishes good ideas. Alas! I have no

companion now with whom I can communicate to relieve the loneliness of

these watches of the night. But I must not fail myself and my

family--and the necessity of exertion becomes apparent. I must try a

_hors d'oeuvre_, something that can go on between the necessary

intervals of _Nap._ Mrs. M[urray] K[eith's] Tale of the Deserter, with

her interview with the lad's mother, may be made most affecting, but

will hardly endure much expansion.[274] The framework may be a Highland

tour, under the guardianship of the sort of postilion, whom Mrs. M.K.

described to me--a species of conductor who regulated the motions of his

company, made their halts, and was their cicerone.

_May_ 28.--I wrote a few pages yesterday, and then walked. I believe the

description of the old Scottish lady may do, but the change has been

unceasingly rung upon Scottish subjects of late, and it strikes me that

the introductory matter may be considered as an imitation of Washington

Irving. Yet not so neither. In short, I will go on, to-day make a dozen

of close pages ready, and take J.B.'s advice. I intend the work as an

_olla podrida_, into which any species of narrative or discussion may be

thrown.

I wrote easily. I think the exertion has done me good. I slept sound

last night, and at waking, as is usual with me, I found I had some clear

views and thoughts upon the subject of this trifling work. I wonder if

others find so strongly as I do the truth of the Latin proverb, _Aurora

musis amica_. If I forget a thing over-night, I am sure to recollect it

as my eyes open in the morning. The same if I want an idea, or am

encumbered by some difficulty, the moment of waking always supplies the

deficiency, or gives me courage to endure the alternative.[275]

_May_ 29.--To-day I leave for Edinburgh this house of sorrow. In the

midst of such distress, I have the great pleasure to see Anne regaining

her health, and showing both patience and steadiness of mind. God

continue this, for my own sake as well as hers. Much of my future

comfort must depend upon her.

[_Edinburgh_,] _May_ 30.--Returned to town last night with Charles. This

morning resume ordinary habits of rising early, working in the morning,

and attending the Court. All will come easily round. But it is at first

as if men looked strange on me, and bit their lip when they wring my

hand, and indicated suppressed feelings. It is natural this should

be--undoubtedly it has been so with me. Yet it is strange to find

one's-self resemble a cloud which darkens gaiety wherever it interposes

its chilling shade. Will it be better when, left to my own feelings, I

see the whole world pipe and dance around me? I think it will. Thus

sympathy intrudes on my private affliction.

I finished correcting the proofs for the _Quarterly_; it is but a flimsy

article, but then the circumstances were most untoward.

This has been a melancholy day, most melancholy. I am afraid poor

Charles found me weeping. I do not know what other folks feel, but with

me the hysterical passion that impels tears is of terrible violence--a

sort of throttling sensation--then succeeded by a state of dreaming

stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte can actually be dead. I

think I feel my loss more than at the first blow.

Poor Charles wishes to come back to study here when his term ends at

Oxford. I can see the motive.

_May_ 31.--The melancholy hours of yesterday must not return. To

encourage that dreamy state of incapacity is to resign all authority

over the mind, and I have been wont to say--

"My mind to me a kingdom is."[276]

I am rightful monarch; and, God to aid, I will not be dethroned by any

rebellious passion that may rear its standard against me. Such are

morning thoughts, strong as carle-hemp--says Burns--

"Come, firm Resolve, take thou the van,

Thou stalk of carle-hemp in man."

Charles went by the steam-boat this morning at six. We parted last night

mournfully on both sides. Poor boy, this is his first serious sorrow.

Wrote this morning a Memorial on the Claims which Constable's people

prefer as to the copyrights of _Woodstock_ and _Napoleon_.[277]

FOOTNOTES:

[263] See _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vol. xx. pp. 152-244, or

_Quarterly Review_ No. 67, Kelly's _Reminiscences_.

[264] 2 _Henry IV_., Act III. Sc. I, slightly altered.

[265] [Mrs. Brown's Lodgings, No. 6 North St. David Street.]

[266] This is the opening couplet of a German trooper's song, alluded to

in _Life_, vol. ii. p. 13. The literal translation is:--

"The day of departure is come;

Heavy lies it on the hearts--heavy."--J.G.L.

[267] Scott had written:--"and yet to part with the companion of twenty

years just six," and had then deleted the three words, "years just six,"

and written "nine" above them. It looks as if he had meant at first to

refer to the change in his fortunes, "just six" MONTHS before, and had

afterwards thought it better to refrain. This would account for a

certain obscurity of meaning.

[268] _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 4.

[269] Cicero, _de Orat._ ii. p. 346.--J.G.L.

[270] Walter Scott Lockhart, died at Versailles in 1853, and was buried

in the Cemetery of Notre-Dame there.

[271] The Rev. Edward Bannerman Ramsay, A.M., St. John's College,

Cambridge, incumbent St. John's, Edinburgh, afterwards Dean of the

Diocese in the Scots Episcopal Church, and still more widely known as

the much-loved "Dean Ramsay," author of _Reminiscences of Scottish Life

and Character_. This venerable Scottish gentleman was for many years the

delight of all who had the privilege of knowing him. He died at the age

of eighty-three in his house, 23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh, Dec. 27th,

1872.

[272] See _Life_, vol. iv. p. 2.

[273] Mr. Skene has preserved the following note written on this

day:--"I take the advantage of Mr. Ramsay's return to Edinburgh to

answer your kind letter. It would have done no good to have brought you

here when I could not have enjoyed your company, and there were enough

friends here to ensure everything being properly adjusted. Anne,

contrary to a natural weakness of temper, is quite quiet and resigned to

her distress, but has been visited by many fainting fits, the effect, I

am told, of weakness, over-exertion, and distress of mind. Her brothers

are both here--Walter having arrived from Ireland yesterday in time to

assist at the _munus inane_; their presence will do her much good, but I

cannot think of leaving her till Monday next, nor could I do my brethren

much good by coming to town, having still that stunned and giddy feeling

which great calamities necessarily produce. It will soon give way to my

usual state of mind, and my friends will not find me much different from

what I have usually been.

"Mr. Ramsay, who I find is a friend of yours, appears an excellent young

man.--My kind love to Mrs. Skene, and am always, yours truly,

"WALTER SCOTT. ABBOTSFORD, _23d May_."

[274] _The Highland Widow_, Waverley Novels, vol. xli.

[275] See February 10, 1826.

[276] This excellent philosophical song appears to have been famous in

the sixteenth century.--Percy's _Reliques_, vol. i. 307.--J.G.L.

[277] See June 2.

JUNE.

_June_ 1.--Yesterday I also finished a few trifling memoranda on a book

called _The Omen_, at Blackwood's request. There is something in the

work which pleases me, and the style is good, though the story is not

artfully conducted. I dined yesterday in family with Skene, and had a

visit from Lord Chief-Commissioner; we met as mourners under a common

calamity. There is something extremely kind in his disposition.

Sir R. D[undas] offers me three days of the country next week, which

tempts me strongly were it but the prospect of seeing Anne. But I think

I must resist and say with Tilburina,

"Duty, I'm all thine own."[278]

If I do this I shall deserve a holiday about the 15th June, and I think

it is best to wait till then.

_June_ 2.--A pleasant letter from Sophia, poor girl; all doing well

there, for which God be praised.

I wrote a good task yesterday, five pages, which is nearly double the

usual stint.

I am settled that I will not go to Abbotsford till to-morrow fortnight.

I might have spared myself the trouble of my self-denial, for go I

cannot, Hamilton having a fit of gout.

Gibson seems in high spirits on the views I have given to him on the

nature of Constable and Co.'s claim. It amounts to this, that being no

longer accountable as publishers, they cannot claim the character of

such, or plead upon any claim arising out of the contracts entered into

while they held that capacity.

_June_ 3.--I was much disturbed this morning by bile and its

consequences, and lost so much sleep that I have been rather late in

rising by way of indemnification. I must go to the map and study the

Italian campaigns instead of scribbling.

_June_ 4.--I wrote a good task yesterday, and to-day a great one, scarce

stirring from the desk the whole day, except a few minutes when Lady Rae

called. I was glad to see my wife's old friend, with whom in early life

we had so many liaisons. I am not sure it is right to work so hard; but

a man must take himself, as well as other people, when he is in the

humour. A man will do twice as much at one time and in half the time,

and twice as well as he will be able to do at another. People are always

crying out about method, and in some respects it is good, and shows to

great advantage among men of business, but I doubt if men of method, who

can lay aside or take up the pen just at the hour appointed, will ever

be better than poor creatures. Lady L[ouisa] S[tuart] used to tell me of

Mr. Hoole, the translator of _Tasso_ and _Ariosto_, and in that capacity

a noble transmuter of gold into lead, that he was a clerk in the India

House, with long ruffles and a snuff-coloured suit of clothes, who

occasionally visited her father [John, Earl of Bute]. She sometimes

conversed with him, and was amused to find that he _did_ exactly so many

couplets day by day, neither more or less; and habit had made it light

to him, however heavy it might seem to the reader.

Well, but if I lay down the pen, as the pain in my breast hints that I

should, what am I to do? If I think, why, I shall weep--and that's

nonsense; and I have no friend now--none--to receive my tediousness for

half-an-hour of the gloaming. Let me be grateful--I have good news from

Abbotsford.

_June_ 5.--Though this be Monday, I am not able to feague it away, as

Bayes says.[279] Between correcting proofs and writing letters, I have

got as yet but two pages written, and that with labour and a sensation

of pain in the chest. I may be bringing on some serious disease by

working thus hard; if I had once justice done to other folks, I do not

much care, only I would not like to suffer long pain. Harden made me a

visit. He argued with me that Lord M. affichéd his own importance, too

much at the election, and says Henry is anxious about it. I hinted to

him the necessity of counter-balancing it the next time, which will be

soon.

Thomson also called about the Bannatyne Club.

These two interruptions did me good, though I am still a poor wretch.

After all, I have fagged through six pages; and made poor Wurmser lay

down his sword on the glacis of Mantua--and my head aches--my eyes

ache--my back aches--so does my breast--and I am sure my heart aches,

and what can Duty ask more?

_June_ 6.--I arose much better this morning, having taken some medicine,

which has removed the strange and aching feeling in my back and breast.

I believe it is from the diaphragm; it must be looked to, however. I

have not yet breakfasted, yet have cleared half my day's work holding it

at the ordinary stint.

Worked hard. John Swinton, my kinsman, came to see me,--very kind and

affectionate in his manner; my heart always warms to that Swinton

connection, so faithful to old Scottish feelings. Harden was also with

me. I talked with him about what Lord M. did at the election; I find

that he disapproves--I see these visits took place on the 5th.

_June_ 7.--Again a day of hard work, only at half-past eight I went to

the Dean of Faculty's to a consultation about Constable,[280] and met

with said Dean and Mr. [J.S.] More and J. Gibson. I find they have as

high hope of success as lawyers ought to express; and I think I know how

our profession speak when sincere. I cannot interest myself deeply in

it. When I had come home from such a business, I used to carry the news

to poor Charlotte, who dressed her face in sadness or mirth as she saw

the news affect me; this hangs lightly about me. I had almost forgot the

appointment, if J.G. had not sent me a card, I passed a piper in the

street as I went to the Dean's and could not help giving him a shilling

to play _Pibroch a Donuil Dhu_ for luck's sake--what a child I am!

_June_ 8.--Bilious and headache this morning. A dog howl'd all night and

left me little sleep. Poor cur! I dare say he had his distresses, as I

have mine. I was obliged to make Dalgleish shut the windows when he

appeared at half-past six, as usual, and did not rise till nine, when

_me voici_. I have often deserved a headache in my younger days without

having one, and Nature is, I suppose, paying off old scores. Ay, but

then the want of the affectionate care that used to be ready, with

lowered voice and stealthy pace, to smooth the pillow--and offer

condolence and assistance,--gone--gone--for ever--ever--ever. Well,

there is another world, and we'll meet free from the mortal sorrows and

frailties which beset us here. Amen, so be it. Let me change the topic

with hand and head, and the heart must follow.

I think that sitting so many days and working so hard may have brought

on this headache. I must inflict a walk on myself to-day. Strange that

what is my delight in the country is _here_ a sort of penance! Well, but

now I think on it, I will go to the Chief-Baron and try to get his

Lordship's opinion about the question with Constable; if I carry it, as

there is, I trust, much hope I shall, Mr. Gibson says there will be

funds to divide 6s. in the pound, without counting upon getting anything

from Constable or Hurst, but sheer hard cash of my own. Such another

pull is possible, especially if _Boney_ succeeds, and the rogue had a

knack at success. Such another, I say, and we touch ground I believe,

for surely Constable, Robinson, etc., must pay something; the struggle

is worth waring[281] a headache upon.

I finished five pages to-day, headache, laziness, and all.

_June_ 9.--Corrected a stubborn proof this morning. These battles have

been the death of many a man--I think they will be mine. Well but it

clears to windward; so we will fag on.

Slept well last night. By the way, how intolerably selfish this Journal

makes me seem--so much attention to one's naturals and non-naturals!

Lord Mackenzie[282] called, and we had much chat about business. The

late regulations for preparing cases in the Outer-House do not work

well, and thus our old machinery, which was very indifferent, is

succeeded by a kind that will hardly move at all. Mackenzie says his

business is trebled, and that he cannot keep it up. I question whether

the extreme strictness of rules of court be advisable in practice they

are always evaded, upon an equitable showing. I do not, for instance,

lodge a paper _debito tempore_, and for an accident happening, perhaps

through the blunder of a Writer's apprentice, I am to lose my cause. The

penalty is totally disproportioned to the delict, and the consequence

is, that means are found out of evasion by legal fictions and the like.

The judges listen to these; they become frequent, and the rule of Court

ends by being a scarecrow merely. Formerly, delays of this kind were

checked by corresponding _amendes_. But the Court relaxed this petty

fine too often. Had they been more strict, and levied the mulct on the

agents, with _no recourse_ upon their clients, the abuse might have been

remedied. I fear the present rule is too severe to do much good.

One effect of running causes fast through the Courts below is, that they

go by scores to appeal, and Lord Gifford[283] has hitherto decided them

with such judgment, and so much rapidity, as to give great satisfaction.

The consequence will in time be, that the Scottish Supreme Court will be

in effect situated in London. Then down fall--as national objects of

respect and veneration--the Scottish Bench, the Scottish Bar, the

Scottish Law herself, and--and--"there is an end of an auld sang."[284]

Were I as I have been, I would fight knee-deep in blood ere it came to

that. But it is a catastrophe which the great course of events brings

daily nearer--

"And who can help it, Dick?"

I shall always be proud of _Malachi_ as having headed back the Southron,

or helped to do so, in one instance at least.

_June_ 10.--This was an unusual teind-day at Court. In the morning and

evening I corrected proofs--four sheets in number; and I wrote my task

of three pages and a little more. Three pages a day will come, at

Constable's rate, to about £12,000 to £15,000 per year. They have sent

their claim; it does not frighten me a bit.

_June_ 11.--Bad dreams about poor Charlotte. Woke, thinking my old and

inseparable friend beside me; and it was only when I was fully awake

that I could persuade myself that she was dark, low, and distant, and

that my bed was widowed. I believe the phenomena of dreaming are in a

great measure occasioned by the _double touch_, which takes place when

one hand is crossed in sleep upon another. Each gives and receives the

impression of touch to and from the other, and this complicated

sensation our sleeping fancy ascribes to the agency of another being,

when it is in fact produced by our own limbs acting on each other. Well,

here goes--_incumbite remis_.

_June_ 12.--Finished volume third of _Napoleon_. I resumed it on the 1st

of June, the earliest period that I could bend my mind to it after my

great loss. Since that time I have lived, to be sure, the life of a

hermit, except attending the Court five days in the week for about three

hours on an average. Except at that time I have been reading or writing

on the subject of _Boney_, and have finished last night, and sent to

printer this morning the last sheets of fifty-two written since 1st

June. It is an awful screed; but grief makes me a house-keeper, and to

labour is my only resource. Ballantyne thinks well of the work--very

well, but I shall [expect] inaccuracies. An' it were to do again, I

would get some one to look it over. But who could that some one be? Whom

is there left of human race that I could hold such close intimacy with?

No one. "_Tanneguy du Châtel, ou es-tu!_"[285]. Worked five pages.

_June_ 13.--I took a walk out last evening after tea, and called on Lord

Chief-Commissioner and the Macdonald Buchanans, that kind and friendly

clan. The heat is very great, and the wrath of the bugs in proportion.

Two hours last night I was kept in an absolute fever. I must make some

arrangement for winter. Great pity my old furniture was sold in such a

hurry! The wiser way would have been to have let the house furnished.

But it's all one in the Greek.

"_Peccavi, peccavi, dies quidem sine lineâ!_" I walked to make calls;

got cruelly hot; drank ginger-beer; wrote letters. Then as I was going

to dinner, enter a big splay-footed, trifle-headed, old pottering

minister, who came to annoy me about a claim which one of his

parishioners has to be Earl of Annandale, and which he conceits to be

established out of the Border Minstrelsy. He mentioned a curious

thing--that three brothers of the Johnstone family, on whose descendants

the male representative of these great Border chiefs devolved, were

forced to fly to the north in consequence of their feuds with the

Maxwells, and agreed to change their names. They slept on the side of

the Soutra Hills, and asking a shepherd the name of the place, agreed in

future to call themselves Sowtra or Sowter Johnstones. The old

pudding-headed man could not comprehend a word I either asked him or

told him, and maundered till I wished him in the Annandale

beef-stand.[286] Mr. Gibson came in after tea, and we talked business.

Then I was lazy and stupid, and dosed over a book instead of writing. So

on the whole, _Confiteor, confiteor, culpa mea, culpa mea_!

_June_ 14.--In the morning I began with a page and a half before

breakfast. This is always the best way. You stand like a child going to

be bathed, shivering and shaking till the first pitcherful is flung

about your ears, and then are as blithe as a water-wagtail. I am just

come home from Parliament House; and now, my friend _Nap._, have at you

with a down-right blow! Methinks I would fain make peace with my

conscience by doing six pages to-night. Bought a little bit of Gruyère

cheese, instead of our domestic choke-dog concern. When did I ever

purchase anything for my own eating? But I will say no more of that. And

now to the bread-mill.

_June_ 15.--I laboured all the evening, but made little way. There were

many books to consult; and so all I could really do was to make out my

task of three pages. I will try to make up the deficit of Tuesday to-day

and to-morrow. Letters from Walter--all well. A visit yesterday from

Charles Sharpe.

_June_ 16.--Yesterday sate in the Court till nearly four. I had, of

course, only time for my task. I fear I will have little more to-day,

for I have accepted to dine at Hector's. I got, yesterday, a present of

two engravings from Sir Henry Raeburn's portrait of me, which (poor

fellow!) was the last he ever painted, and certainly not his worst.[287]

I had the pleasure to give one to young Mr. Davidoff for his uncle, the

celebrated Black Captain of the campaign of 1812. Curious that he should

be interested in getting the resemblance of a person whose mode of

attaining some distinction has been very different. But I am sensible,

that if there be anything good about my poetry or prose either, it is a

hurried frankness of composition which pleases soldiers, sailors, and

young people of bold and active disposition. I have been no sigher in

shades--no writer of

"Songs and sonnets and rustical roundelays,

Framed on fancies, and whistled on reeds."[288]

[_Abbotsford, Saturday_,] _June_ 17.--Left Edinburgh to-day after

Parliament House to come [here]. My two girls met me at Torsonce, which

was a pleasant surprise, and we returned in the sociable all together.

Found everything right and well at Abbotsford under the new regime. I

again took possession of the family bedroom and my widowed couch. This

was a sore trial, but it was necessary not to blink such a resolution.

Indeed, I do not like to have it thought that there is any way in which

I can be beaten.[289]

_June_ 18.--This morning wrote till half-twelve--good day's work--at

_Canongate Chronicles_. Methinks I can make this work answer. Then drove

to Huntly Burn and called at Chiefswood. Walked home. The country crying

for rain; yet on the whole the weather delicious, dry, and warm, with a

fine air of wind. The young woods are rising in a kind of profusion I

never saw elsewhere. Let me once clear off these encumbrances, and they

shall wave broader and deeper yet. But to attain this I _must work_.

Wrought very fair accordingly till two; then walked; after dinner out

again with the girls. Smoked two cigars, first time these two months.

_June_ 19.--Wrought very fair indeed, and the day being scorching we

dined _al fresco_ in the hall among the armour, and went out early in

the evening. Walked to the lake and back again by the Marle pool; very

delightful evening.

_June_ 20.--This is also a hard-working day. Hot weather is favourable

for application, were it not that it makes the composer sleepy. Pray God

the reader may not partake the sensation! But days of hard work make

short journals. To-day we again dine in the hall, and drive to Ashestiel

in the evening _pour prendre le frais_.

_June_ 21--We followed the same course we proposed. For a party of

pleasure I have attended to business well. Twenty pages of Croftangry,

five printed pages each, attest my diligence, and I have had a

delightful variation by the company of the two Annes. Regulated my

little expenses here.

[_Edinburgh_,] _June_ 22.--Returned to my Patmos. Heard good news from

Lockhart. Wife well, and John Hugh better. He mentions poor Southey

testifying much interest for me, even to tears. It is odd--am I so

hard-hearted a man? I could not have wept for him, though in distress I

would have gone any length to serve him. I sometimes think I do not

deserve people's good opinion, for certainly my feelings are rather

guided by reflection than impulse. But everybody has his own mode of

expressing interest, and mine is stoical even in bitterest grief. _Agere

atque pati, Romanum est._ I hope I am not the worse for wanting the

tenderness that I see others possess, and which is so amiable. I think

it does not cool my wish to be of use where I can. But the truth is, I

am better at enduring or acting than at consoling. From childhood's

earliest hour my heart rebelled against the influence of external

circumstances in myself and others. _Non est tanti!_

To-day I was detained in the Court from half-past ten till near four;

yet I finished and sent off a packet to Cadell, which will finish

one-third of the _Chronicles_, vol. 1st.

Henry Scott came in while I was at dinner, and sat while I ate my

beef-steak. A gourmand would think me much at a loss, coming back to my

ploughman's meal of boiled beef and Scotch broth, from the rather

_recherché_ table at Abbotsford, but I have no philosophy in my

carelessness on that score. It is natural--though I am no ascetic, as my

father was.

_June_ 23.--The heat tremendous, and the drought threatening the hay and

barley crop. Got from the Court at half-twelve, and walked to the

extremity of Heriot Row to see poor Lady Don; left my card as she does

not receive any one. I am glad this painful meeting is adjourned. I

received to-day £10 from Blackwood for the article on _The Omen_. Time

was I would not have taken these small tithes of mint and cummin, but

scornful dogs will eat dirty puddings, and I, with many depending on me,

must do the best I can with my time--God help me!

[_Blair-Adam_,] _June_ 24.--Left Edinburgh yesterday after the Court,

half-past twelve, and came over here with the Lord Chief-Baron and

William Clerk, to spend as usual a day or two at Blair-Adam. In general,

this is a very gay affair. We hire a light coach-and-four, and scour the

country in every direction in quest of objects of curiosity. But the

Lord Chief-Commissioner's family misfortunes and my own make our holiday

this year of a more quiet description than usual, and a sensible degree

of melancholy hangs on the reunion of our party. It was wise, however,

not to omit it, for to slacken your hold on life in any agreeable point

of connection is the sooner to reduce yourself to the indifference and

passive vegetation of old age.

_June_ 25.--Another melting day; thermometer at 78° even here. 80° was

the height yesterday at Edinburgh. If we attempt any active proceeding

we dissolve ourselves into a dew. We have lounged away the morning

creeping about the place, sitting a great deal, and walking as little as

might be on account of the heat.

Blair-Adam has been successively in possession of three generations of

persons attached to and skilled in the art of embellishment, and may be

fairly taken as a place where art and taste have done a great deal to

improve nature. A long ridge of varied ground sloping to the foot of the

hill called Benarty, and which originally was of a bare, mossy, boggy

character, has been clothed by the son, father, and grandfather; while

the undulations and hollows, which seventy or eighty years since must

have looked only like wrinkles in the black morasses, being now drained

and limed, are skirted with deep woods, particularly of spruce, which

thrives wonderfully, and covered with excellent grass. We drove in the

droskie and walked in the evening.

_June_, 26.--Another day of unmitigated heat; thermometer 82; must be

higher in Edinburgh, where I return to-night, when the decline of the

sun makes travelling practicable. It will be well for my work to be

there--not quite so well for me; there is a difference between the

clean, nice arrangement of Blair-Adam and Mrs. Brown's accommodations,

though he who is insured against worse has no right to complain of them.

But the studious neatness of poor Charlotte has perhaps made me

fastidious. She loved to see things clean, even to Oriental

scrupulosity. So oddly do our deep recollections of other kinds

correspond with the most petty occurrences of our life.

Lord Chief-Baron told us a story of the ruling passion strong in death.

A Master in Chancery was on his deathbed--a very wealthy man. Some

occasion of great urgency occurred in which it was necessary to make an

affidavit, and the attorney, missing one or two other Masters, whom he

inquired after, ventured to ask if Mr. ------ would be able to receive

the deposition. The proposal seemed to give him momentary strength; his

clerk sent for, and the oath taken in due form, the Master was lifted up

in bed, and with difficulty subscribed the paper; as he sank down again,

he made a signal to his clerk--"Wallace."--"Sir?"--"Your

ear--lower--lower. Have you got the _half-crown_?" He was dead before

morning.

[_Edinburgh_,] _June_ 27.--Returned to Edinburgh late last night, and

had a most sweltering night of it. This day also cruel hot. However, I

made a task or nearly so, and read a good deal about the Egyptian

Expedition. Had comfortable accounts of Anne, and through her of Sophia.

Dr. Shaw doubts if anything is actually the matter with poor Johnnie's

back. I hope the dear child will escape deformity, and the infirmities

attending that helpless state. I have myself been able to fight up very

well, notwithstanding my lameness, but it has cost great efforts, and I

am besides very strong. Dined with Colin Mackenzie; a fine family all

growing up about him, turning men and women, and treading fast on our

heels. Some thunder and showers which I fear will be but partial.

Hot--hot--hot.

_June_, 28.--Another hot morning, and something like an idle day, though

I have read a good deal. But I have slept also, corrected proofs, and

prepared for a great start, by filling myself with facts and ideas.

_June_ 29.--I walked out for an hour last night, and made one or two

calls--the evening was delightful--

"Day its sultry fires had wasted,

Calm and cool the moonbeam rose;

Even a captive's bosom tasted

Half oblivion of his woes."[290]

I wonder often how Tom Campbell, with so much real genius, has not

maintained a greater figure in the public eye than he has done of late.

The _Magazine_ seems to have paralysed him. The author, not only of the

_Pleasures of Hope_, but of _Hohenlinden, Lochiel_, etc., should have

been at the very top of the tree. Somehow he wants audacity, fears the

public, and, what is worse, fears the shadow of his own reputation. He

is a great corrector too, which succeeds as ill in composition as in

education. Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce, and many an

original composition corrected into mediocrity. Yet Tom Campbell ought

to have done a great deal more. His youthful promise was great. John

Leyden introduced me to him. They afterwards quarrelled. When I repeated

_Hohenlinden_ to Leyden, he said, "Dash it, man, tell the fellow that I

hate him, but, dash him, he has written the finest verses that have been

published these fifty years." I did mine errand as faithfully as one of

Homer's messengers, and had for answer, "Tell Leyden that I detest him,

but I know the value of his critical approbation." This feud was

therefore in the way of being taken up. "When Leyden comes back from

India," said Tom Campbell, "what cannibals he will have eaten and what

tigers he will have torn to pieces!"

Gave a poor poetess £1. Gibson writes me that £2300 is offered for the

poor house; it is worth £300 more, but I will not oppose my own opinion,

or convenience to good and well-meant counsel: so farewell, poor No. 39.

What a portion of my life has been spent there! It has sheltered me from

the prime of life to its decline; and now I must bid good-bye to it. I

have bid good-bye to my poor wife, so long its courteous and kind

mistress,--and I need not care about the empty rooms; yet it gives me a

turn. I have been so long a citizen of Edinburgh, now an indweller only.

Never mind; all in the day's work.

J. Ballantyne and B. Cadell dined with me, and, as Pepys would say, all

was very handsome. Drank amongst us one bottle of champagne, one of

claret, a glass or two of port, and each a tumbler of whisky toddy. J.B.

had courage to drink his with _hot_ water; mine was iced.

_June_ 30.--Here is another dreadful warm day, fit for nobody but the

flies. And then one is confined to town.

Yesterday I agreed to let Cadell have the new work,[291] edition 1500,

he paying all charges, and paying also £500--two hundred and fifty at

Lammas, to pay J. Gibson money advanced on the passage of young Walter,

my nephew, to India. It is like a thorn in one's eye this sort of debt,

and Gibson is young in business, and somewhat involved in my affairs

besides. Our plan is, that this same _Miscellany_ or _Chronicle_ shall

be committed quietly to the public, and we hope it will attract

attention. If it does not, we must turn public attention to it

ourselves. About one half of vol. i. is written, and there is worse

abomination, or I mistake the matter.

I was detained in Court till four; dreadfully close, and obliged to

drink water for refreshment, which formerly I used to scorn, even on the

moors, with a burning August sun, the heat of exercise, and a hundred

springs gushing around me.

Corrected proofs, etc., on my return. I think I have conquered the

trustees' objections to carry on the small edition of novels. Got

Cadell's letter about the _Chronicle_.

FOOTNOTES:

[278] Sheridan's _Critic_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

[279] Buckingham's _Rehearsal_.--The expression "To Feague" does not

occur in the first edition, where the passage stands thus:--

"_Phys._--When a knotty point comes, I lay my head close to it, with a

pipe of tobacco in my mouth and then _whew_ it away. I' faith.

"_Bayes_.--I do just so, i' gad, always." Act II. Sc. 4.

In some subsequent editions the words are:--"I lay my head close to it

with a _snuff-box in my hand_, and I _feague_ it away. I' faith."

I am indebted to Dr. Murray for this reference, which he kindly

furnished me with from the materials collected for his great English

Dictionary.

[280] This alludes to the claim advanced by the creditors of Constable

and Co. to the copyright of _Woodstock_ and the _Life of Napoleon_. The

Dean of the Faculty of Advocates was at that time George Cranstoun,

afterwards a judge on the Scottish Bench under the title; of Lord

Corehouse, from 1826 until 1839, when he retired; he died 1850.

[281] _i.e._ spending.

[282] The eldest son of "_The Man of Feeling_." He had been a judge from

1822; he died at the age of seventy-four in 1851.

[283] Baron Gifford died a few months later, viz., in Sept. 1826; he had

been Attorney-General in 1819, and Chief-Justice in 1824. Lord and Lady

Gifford had visited Abbotsford in the autumn of 1825.

[284] Speech of Lord Chancellor Seafield on the ratification of the

Scottish Union.--See _Miscell. Prose Works_, vol. xxv. p. 93.

[285] See Moréri's _Dictionnaire_, Art. "Tanneguy du Châtel."

[286] An example of Scott's wonderful patience, and his power of

utilising hints gathered from the most unpromising materials. Apropos of

this Mr. Skene relates:--"In one of our frequent walks to the pier of

Leith, to which the freshness of the sea breeze offered a strong

inducement to those accustomed to pass a few of the morning hours within

the close and impure atmosphere of the Court of Session, I happened to

meet with, and to recognise, the Master of a vessel in which I had

sailed in the Mediterranean. Our recognition of each other seemed to

give mutual satisfaction, as the cordial grasp of the seaman's hard fist

effectually indicated. It was some years since we had been shipmates, he

had since visited almost every quarter of the globe, but he shook his

head, and looked serious when he came to mention his last trip. He had

commanded a whaler, and having been for weeks exposed to great stress of

weather in the polar regions, finally terminated in the total loss of

his vessel, with most of her equipage, in the course of a dark

tempestuous night. When thrown on her beam-ends, my friend had been

washed overboard, and in his struggles to keep himself above water had

got hold of a piece of ice, on the top of which he at length succeeded

in raising himself--'and there I was, sir, on a cursed dark dirty night,

squatted on a round lump of floating ice, for all the world like a

tea-table adrift in the middle of a stormy sea, without being able to

see whether there was any hope within sight, and having enough ado to

hold on, cold as my seat was, with sometimes one end of me in the water,

and sometimes the other, as the ill-fashioned crank thing kept whirling,

and whomeling about all night. However, praised be God, daylight had not

been long in, when a boat's crew on the outlook hove in sight, and

taking me for a basking seal, and maybe I was not unlike that same, up

they came of themselves, for neither voice nor hand had I to signal

them, and if they lost their blubber, faith, sir, they did get a willing

prize on board; so, after just a little bit gliff of a prayer for the

mercy that sent them to my help, I soon came to myself again, and now

that I am landed safe and sound, I am walking about, ye see, like a

gentleman, till I get some new craft to try the trade again.'--Sir

Walter, who was leaning on my arm during this narrative, had not taken

any share in the dialogue, and kept gazing to seaward, with his usual

heavy, absorbed expression, and only joined in wishing the seaman better

success in his next trip as we parted. However, the detail had by no

means escaped his notice, but dropping into the fertile soil of his

mind, speedily yielded fruit, quite characteristic of his habits. We

happened that evening to dine in company together; I was not near Sir

Walter at table, but in the course of the evening my attention was

called to listen to a narrative with which he was entertaining those

around him, and he seemed as usual to have excited the eager interest of

his hearers. The commencement of the story I had not heard, but soon

perceived that a shipwreck was the theme, which he described with all

the vivid touches of his fancy, marshalling the incidents and striking

features of the situation with a degree of dexterity that seemed to

bring all the horrors of a polar storm home to every one's mind, and

although it occurred to me that our rencontre in the morning with the

shipwrecked Whaler might have recalled a similar story to his

recollection, it was not until he came to mention _the tea-table of ice_

that I recognised the identity of my friend's tale, which had luxuriated

to such an extent in the fertile soil of the poet's imagination, as to

have left the original germ in comparative insignificance. He cast a

glance towards me at the close, and observed, with a significant nod,

'You see, you did not hear one-half of that honest seaman's story this

morning.' It was such slender hints, which in the common intercourse of

life must have hourly dropped on the soil of his retentive memory, that

fed the exuberance of Sir Walter's invention, and supplied the seemingly

inexhaustible stream of fancy, from which he drew forth at pleasure the

ground-work of romance."--_Reminiscences_.

[287] Painted for Lord Montagu in 1822.--See _Life_, vol. vii. p. 13.

Raeburn apparently executed two "half lengths" of Scott almost identical

at this time, giving Lord Montagu his choice. The picture chosen

remained at Ditton, near Windsor, until 1845, when at Lord Montagu's

death it became the property of his son-in-law, the Earl of Home, and it

is now (1889) at the Hirsel, Coldstream. The engraving referred to was

made from the replica, which remained in the artist's possession, by Mr.

Walker, and published in 1826. Sir Henry Raeburn died in July 1823, and

I do not know what became of the original, which may be identified by an

official chain round the neck, not introduced in the Montagu picture.

[288] Song of _The Hunting of the Hare_.--J.G.L.

[289] This entry reminds one of Hannah More's account of Mrs. Garrick's

conduct after her husband's funeral. "She told me," says Mrs. More,

"that she prayed with great composure, then went and kissed the dear

bed, and got into it with a sad pleasure."--See _Memoirs of Mrs. More_,

vol. i. p. 135.--J.G.L.

[290] Campbell's _Turkish Lady_, slightly altered. The poet was then

editor of the _New Monthly Magazine_, but he soon gave it up.--J.G.L.

[291] Viz.: the first series of _Chronicles of the Canongate_, which was

published in 1827. The title originally proposed was _The Canongate

Miscellany_ or _Traditions of the Sanctuary_.

_Woodstock_ had just been launched under the following

title:--_Woodstock, or the Cavalier; a Tale of the Year Sixteen Hundred

and Fifty-one_, by the author of _Waverley, Tales of the Crusaders_,

etc. "He was a very perfect gentle knight" (Chaucer). Edinburgh: Printed

for Archibald Constable and Co., Edinburgh; and Longman, Rees, Orme,

Brown, and Green, London, 1826. (At the end) Edinburgh: Printed by James

Ballantyne and Co. 3 vols. post 8vo.

JULY.

[_Edinburgh_,] _July 1st._--Another sunny day. This threatens absolutely

Syrian drought. As the Selkirk election comes on Monday, I go out to-day

to Abbotsford, and carry young Davidoff and his tutor with me, to see

our quiet way of managing the choice of a national representative.

I wrote a page or two last night slumbrously.

[_Abbotsford_,] _July_ 2.--Late at Court. Got to Abbotsford last night

with Count Davidoff about eight o'clock. I worked a little this morning,

then had a long and warm walk. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton from Chiefswood,

the present inhabitants of Lockhart's cottage, dined with us, which made

the society pleasant. He is a fine, soldierly-looking man[292]--though

affected with paralysis--his wife a sweet good-humoured little woman. He

is supposed to be a writer in Blackwood's _Magazine_. Since we were to

lose the Lockharts, we could scarce have had more agreeable folks.

At Selkirk, where Borthwickbrae was elected with the usual unanimity of

the Forest freeholders. This was a sight to my young Muscovite. We

walked in the evening to the lake.

_July_ 5.--Still very hot, but with thunder showers. Wrote till

breakfast, then walked and signed the death-warrant of a number of old

firs at Abbotstown. I hope their deaths will prove useful. Their lives

are certainly not ornamental. Young Mr. Davidoff entered upon the cause

of the late discontents in Russia, which he imputes to a deep-seated

Jacobin conspiracy to overthrow the state and empire and establish a

government by consuls.

[_Edinburgh_,] _July_ 6.--Returned last night with my frozen Muscovites

to the Capital, and suffered as usual from the incursions of the black

horse during the night. It was absolute fever. A bunch of letters, but

little interesting. Mr. Barry Cornwall[293] writes to condole with me. I

think our acquaintance scarce warranted this; but it is well meant and

modestly done. I cannot conceive the idea of forcing myself on strangers

in distress, and I have half a mind to turn sharp round on some of my

consolers. Came home from Court. R.P. Gillies called; he is writing a

satire. He has a singular talent of aping the measure and tone of Byron,

and this poem goes to the tune of _Don Juan_, but it is the Champagne

after it has stood two days with the cork drawn. Thereafter came Charles

K. Sharpe and Will Clerk, as Robinson sayeth, to my exceeding

refreshment.[294] And last, not least, Mr. Jollie, one of the triumvirs

who manage my poor matters. He consents to going on with the small

edition of novels, which he did not before comprehend. All this has

consumed the day, but we will make up tide-way presently. I must dress

to go to Lord Medwyn[295] to dinner, and it is near time.

_July_ 7.--Coming home from Lord Medwyn's last night I fell in with

Willie Clerk, and went home to drink a little shrub and water, over

which we chatted of old stories until half-past eleven. This morning I

corrected two proofs of C[roftangr]y, which is getting on. But there

must be a little check with the throng of business at the close of the

session. D---n the session! I wish it would close its eyes for a

century. It is too bad to be kept broiling here; but, on the other

hand, we must have the instinctive gratitude of the Laird of M'Intosh,

who was for the King that gave M'Intosh half-a-guinea the day and

half-a-guinea the morn. So I retract my malediction.

Received from Blackwood to account sales of _Malachi_ £72 with some odd

shillings. This was for copies sold to Banks. The cash comes far from

ill-timed, having to clear all odds and ends before I leave Edinburgh.

This will carry me on tidily till 25th, when precepts become payable.

Well! if _Malachi_ did me some mischief, he must also contribute _quodam

modo_ to my comfort.

_July_ 8.--Wrote a good task this morning. I may be mistaken; but I do

think the tale of Elspat McTavish[296] in my bettermost manner--but J.B.

roars for chivalry. He does not quite understand that everything may be

overdone in this world, or sufficiently estimate the necessity of

novelty. The Highlanders have been off the field now for some time.

Returning from Court, looked into a show of wild beasts, and saw Nero

the great lion, whom they had the cruelty to bait with bull-dogs,

against whom the noble creature disdained to exert his strength. He was

lying like a prince in a large cage, where you might be admitted if you

wish. I had a month's mind--- but was afraid of the newspapers; I could

be afraid of nothing else, for never did a creature seem more gentle and

yet majestic--I longed to caress him. Wallace, the other lion, born in

Scotland, seemed much less trustworthy. He handled the dogs as his

namesake did the southron.

Enter a confounded Dousterswivel, called Burschal, or some such name,

patronised by John Lockhart, teacher of German and learner of English.

He opened the trenches by making me a present of a German work called

_Der Bibelische Orient_, then began to talk of literature at large; and

display his own pretensions. Asked my opinion of Gray as a poet, and

wished me to subscribe an attestation of his own merits for the purpose

of getting him scholars. As I hinted my want of acquaintance with his

qualifications, I found I had nearly landed myself in a proof, for he

was girding up his loins to repeated thundering translations by himself

into German, Hebrew, until, thinking it superfluous to stand on very

much ceremony with one who used so little with me, hinted at letters to

write, and got him to translate himself elsewhere.

Saw a good house in Brunswick Street, which I liked. This evening supped

with Thomas Thomson about the affairs of the Bannatyne. There was the

Dean, Will Clerk, John Thomson, young Smythe of Methven; very pleasant.

_July_ 9.--Rather slumbrous to-day from having sat up till twelve last

night. We settled, or seemed to settle, on an election for the Bannatyne

Club. There are people who would wish to confine it much to one party.

But those who were together last night saw it in the true and liberal

point of view, as a great national institution, which may do much good

in the way of publishing our old records, providing we do not fall into

the usual habit of antiquarians, and neglect what is useful for things

that are merely curious. Thomson is a host for such an undertaking. I

wrote a good day's work at the Canongate matter, notwithstanding the

intervention of two naps. I get sleepy oftener than usual. It is the

weather I suppose--_Naboclish!_[297] I am near the end of the first

volume, and every step is one out of difficulty.

_July_ 10.--Slept too long this morning. It was eight before I

rose--half-past eight ere I came into the parlour. Terry and J.

Ballantyne dined with me yesterday, and I suppose the wassail, though

there was little enough of it, had stuck to my pillow.

This morning I was visited by a Mr. Lewis, a smart Cockney, whose object

is to amend the handwriting. He uses as a mechanical aid a sort of

puzzle of wire and ivory, which is put upon the fingers to keep them in

the desired position, like the muzzle on a dog's nose to make him bear

himself right in the field. It is ingenious, and may be useful. If the

man comes here, as he proposes, in winter, I will take lessons. Bear

witness, good reader, that if W.S. writes a cramp hand, as is the case,

he is desirous to mend it.

Dined with John Swinton _en famille_. He told me an odd circumstance.

Coming from Berwickshire in the mail coach he met with a passenger who

seemed more like a military man than anything else. They talked on all

sorts of subjects, at length on politics. _Malachi's_ letters were

mentioned, when the stranger observed they were much more seditious than

some expressions for which he had three or four years ago been nearly

sent to Botany Bay. And perceiving John Swinton surprised at this

avowal, he added, "I am Kinloch of Kinloch." This gentleman had got

engaged in the radical business (the only real gentleman by the way who

did), and harangued the weavers of Dundee with such emphasis that he

would have been tried and sent to Botany Bay had he not fled abroad. He

was outlawed, and only restored to his status on a composition with

Government. It seems to have escaped Mr. Kinloch that the conduct of a

man who places a lighted coal in the middle of combustibles, and upon

the floor, is a little different from that of one who places the same

quantity of burning fuel in a fire-grate![298]

_July_ 11.--The last day of the session, and as toilsome a one as I ever

saw. There were about 100 or 120 cases on the roll, and most of them of

an incidental character, which gives us Clerks the greatest trouble, for

it is the grasshopper that is a burthen to us. Came home about four,

tired and hungry. I wrought little or none; indeed I could not, having

books and things to pack. Went in the evening to sup with John

Murray,[299] where I met Will Clerk, Thomson, Henderland, and Charles

Stuart Blantyre, and had of course a pleasant party. I came late home,

though, for me, and was not in bed till past midnight; it would not do

for me to do this often.

_July_ 12.--I have the more reason to eschew evening parties that I

slept two mornings till past eight; these vigils would soon tell on my

utility, as the divines call it, but this is the last day in town, and

the world shall be amended. I have been trying to mediate between the

unhappy R.P. G[illies] and his uncle Lord G. The latter talks like a man

of sense and a good relation, and would, I think, do something for

E.P.G., if he would renounce temporary expedients and bring his affairs

to a distinct crisis. But this E.P. will not hear of, but flatters

himself with ideas which seem to me quite visionary. I could make

nothing of him; but, I conclude, offended him by being of his uncle's

opinion rather than his, as to the mode of extricating his affairs.

I am to dine out to-day, and I would fain shirk and stay at home; never,

Shylock-like, had I less will to feasting forth, but I must go or be

thought sulky. Lord M. and Lady Abercromby called this morning, and a

world of people besides, among others honest Mr. Wilson, late of

Wilsontown, who took so much care of me at London, sending fresh eggs

and all sorts of good things. Well, I have dawdled and written letters

sorely against the grain all day. Also I have been down to see Will

Allan's picture of the Landing of Queen Mary, which he has begun in a

great style; also I have put my letters and papers to rights, which only

happens when I am about to move, and now, having nothing left to do, I

_must_ go and dress myself.

_July_ 13.--Dined yesterday with Lord Abercromby at a party he gave to

Lord Melville and some old friends, who formed the Contemporary Club.

Lord M. and I met with considerable feeling on both sides, and all our

feuds were forgotten and forgiven; I conclude so at least, because one

or two people, whom I know to be sharp observers of the weatherglass on

occasion of such squalls, have been earnest with me to meet Lord M. at

parties--which I am well assured they would not have been (had I been

Horace come to life again[300]) were they not sure the breeze was over.

For myself, I am happy that our usual state of friendship should be

restored, though I could not have _come down proud stomach_ to make

advances, which is, among friends, always the duty of the richer and

more powerful of the two.

To-day I leave Mrs. Brown's lodgings. Altogether I cannot complain, but

the insects were voracious, even until last night when the turtle-soup

and champagne ought to have made me sleep like a top. But I have done a

monstrous sight of work here notwithstanding the indolence of this last

week, which must and shall be amended.

"So good-by, Mrs. Brown,

I am going out of town,

Over dale, over down,

Where bugs bite not,

Where lodgers fight not,

Where below you chairmen drink not,

Where beside you gutters stink not;

But all is fresh, and clean, and gay,

And merry lambkins sport and play,

And they toss with rakes uncommonly short hay,

Which looks as if it had been sown only the other day,

And where oats are at twenty-five shillings a boll, they say,

But all's one for that, since I must and will away."

_July_ 14, ABBOTSFORD.--Arrived here yesterday before five o'clock.

Anybody would think, from the fal-de-ral conclusion of my journal of

yesterday, that I left town in a very gay humour--_cujus contrarium

verum est_. But nature has given me a kind of buoyancy, I know not what

to call it, that mingles even with my deepest afflictions and most

gloomy hours. I have a secret pride--I fancy it will be so most truly

termed--which impels me to mix with my distresses strange snatches of

mirth "which have no mirth in them." In fact, the journey hither, the

absence of the affectionate friend that used to be my companion on the

journey, and many mingled thoughts of bitterness, have given me a fit of

the bile.

_July_ 15.--This day I did not attempt to work, but spent my time in the

morning in making the necessary catalogue and distribution of two or

three chests of books which I have got home from the binder, Niece Anne

acting as my Amanuensis. In the evening we drove to Huntly Burn, and

took tea there. Returning home we escaped a considerable danger. The

iron screw bolts of the driving-seat suddenly giving way, the servants

were very nearly precipitated upon the backs of the horses. Had it been

down hill instead of being on the level, the horses must have taken

fright, and the consequences might have been fatal. Indeed, they had

almost taken fright as it was, had not Peter Matheson,[301] who, in Mr.

Fag's phrase, I take to be, "the discreetest of whips,"[302] kept his

presence of mind, when losing his equilibrium, so that he managed to

keep the horses in hand until we all got out. I must say it is not the

first imminent danger on which I have seen Peter (my Automedon for near

twenty-five years) behave with the utmost firmness.

_July_ 16.--Very unsatisfactory to-day. Sleepy, stupid,

indolent--finished arranging the books, and after that was totally

useless--unless it can be called study that I slumbered for three or

four hours over a variorum edition of the Gill's-Hill's tragedy.[303]

Admirable recipe for low spirits--for, not to mention the brutality of

so extraordinary a murder, it led John Bull into one of his uncommon

fits of gambols, until at last he become so maudlin as to weep for the

pitiless assassin, Thurtell, and treasure up the leaves and twigs of the

hedge and shrubs in the fatal garden as valuable relics--nay, thronged

the minor theatres to see the very roan horse and yellow gig in which

the body was transported from one place to another. I have not stept

over the threshold to-day, so very stupid have I been.

_July_ 17.--_Desidiæ longum valedixi._ Our time is like our money. When

we change a guinea, the shillings escape as things of small account;

when we break a day by idleness in the morning, the rest of the hours

lose their importance in our eye. I set stoutly to work about seven this

morning to _Boney_--

And long ere dinner-time, I have

Full eight close pages wrote;

What, Duty, hast thou now to crave?

Well done, Sir Walter Scott!

_July_ 18.--This, as yesterday, has been a day of unremitting labour,

though I only got through half the quantity of manuscript, owing to

drowsiness, a most disarming annoyance. I walked a little before dinner

and after tea, but was unable to go with the girls and Charles to the

top of Cauldshiels Hill. I fear my walking powers are diminishing, but

why not? They have been wonderfully long efficient, all things

considered, only I fear I shall get fat and fall into diseases. Well,

things must be as they may. Let us use the time and faculties which God

has left us, and trust futurity to his guidance. Amen.

This is the day of St. Boswell's Fair. That watery saint has for once

had a dry festival.

_July_ 19.--Wrote a page this morning, but no more. Corrected proofs

however, and went to Selkirk to hold Sheriff Court; this consumed the

forenoon. Colonel and Miss Ferguson, with Mr. and Mrs. Laidlaw, dined

and occupied the evening. The rain seemed to set in this night.

_July_ 20.--To-day rainy. A morning and forenoon of hard work. About

five pages, which makes up for yesterday's lee way. I am sadly tired

however. But as I go to Mertoun at four, and spend the night there, the

exertion was necessary.

_July_ 21.--To Mertoun we went accordingly. Lord and Lady Minto were

there, with part of their family, David Haliburton, etc., besides their

own large family. So my lodging was a little room which I had not

occupied since I was a bachelor, but often before in my frequent

intercourse with this kind and hospitable family. Feeling myself

returned to that celibacy, which renders many accommodations indifferent

which but lately were indispensable, my imagination drew a melancholy

contrast between the young man entering the world on fire for fame, and

restless in imagining means of coming by it, and the aged widower,

_blasé_ on the point of literary reputation, deprived of the social

comforts of a married state, and looking back to regret instead of

looking forward to hope. This brought bad sleep and unpleasing dreams.

But if I cannot hope to be what I have been, I will not, if I can help

it, suffer vain repining to make me worse than I may be.

We left Mertoun after breakfast, and the two Annes and I visited Lady

Raeburn at Lessudden. My Aunt is now in her ninetieth year--so clean,

so nice, so well arranged in every respect, that it makes old age

lovely. She talks both of late and former events with perfect possession

of her faculties, and has only failed in her limbs. A great deal of kind

feeling has survived, in spite of the frost of years.

Home to dinner, and worked all the afternoon among the Moniteurs--to

little purpose, for my principal acquisition was a headache. I wrote

nothing to-day but part of a trifle for _Blackwood_.

_July_ 22.--The same severe headache attends my poor pate. But I have

worked a good deal this morning, and will do more. I wish to have half

the volume sent into town on Monday if possible. It will be a royal

effort, and more than make up for the blanks of this week.

_July_ 23.--I wrote very hard this day, and attained page 40; 45 would

be more than half the volume. Colonel Russell came about one, and

carried me out a-walking, which I was all the better of. In the evening

we expected Terry and his wife, but they did not come, which makes me

fear she may be unwell again.

_July_ 24.--A great number of proof-sheets to revise and send off, and

after that I took a fancy to give a more full account of the

Constitution framed by Sieyès--a complicated and ingenious web; it is

but far too fine and critical to be practically useful.

_July_ 25.--Terry and wife arrived yesterday. Both very well. At

dinner-time to-day came Dr. Jamieson[304] of the Scottish Dictionary, an

excellent good man, and full of auld Scottish cracks, which amuse me

well enough, but are _caviare_ to the young people. A little prolix and

heavy is the good Doctor; somewhat prosaic, and accustomed to much

attention on the Sunday from his congregation, and I hope on the six

other days from his family. So _he will_ demand full attention from all

and sundry before he begins a story, and once begun there is no chance

of his ending.

_July_ 26.--This day went to Selkirk, and held a Court. The Doctor and

Terry chose to go with me. Captain and Mrs. Hamilton came to dinner.

Desperate warm weather! Little done in the literary way except sending

off proofs. Roup of standing corn, etc., went off very indifferently.

Letter from Ballantyne wanting me to write about absentees. But I have

enough to do without burning my fingers with politics.

_July_ 27.--Up and at it this morning, and finished four pages. An

unpleasant letter from London, as if I might be troubled by some of the

creditors there, when going to town to get materials for _Nap_. I have

no wish to go,--none at all. I would even like to put off my visit, so

far as John Lockhart and my daughter are concerned, and see them when

the meeting could be more pleasant. But then, having an offer to see the

correspondence from St. Helena, I can make no doubt that I ought to go.

However, if it is to infer any danger to my personal freedom, English

wind will not blow on me. It is monstrous hard to prevent me doing what

is certainly the best for all parties.

_July_ 28.--I am well-nigh choked with the sulphurous heat of the

weather--or I am unwell, for I perspire as if I had been walking hard,

and my hand is as nervous as a paralytic's. Read through and corrected

_St. Ronan's Well_. I am no judge, but I think the language of this

piece rather good. Then I must allow the fashionable portraits are not

the true thing. I am too much out of the way to see and remark the

ridiculous in society. The story is terribly contorted and unnatural,

and the catastrophe is melancholy, which should always be avoided. No

matter; I have corrected it for the press.[305]

The worthy Lexicographer left us to-day. Somewhat ponderous he is, poor

soul! but there are excellent things about him.

Action and Reaction--Scots proverb: "the unrest (_i.e._ pendulum) of a

clock _goes aye as far the ae gait as the t'other_."

Walter's account of his various quarters per last despatch. Query if

original:--

"Loughrea is a blackguard place

To Gort I give my curse;

Athlone itself is bad enough,

But Ballinrobe is worse.

I cannot tell which is the worst,

They're all so very bad;

But of all towns I ever saw,

Bad luck to Kinnegad."

Old Mr. Haliburton dined with us, also Colonel Russell. What a man for

fourscore or thereby is Old Haly--an Indian too. He came home in 1785.

_July_ 29.--Yesterday I wrought little, and light work, almost stifled

by the smothering heat. To-day I wrought about half task in the morning,

and, as a judgment on me I think for yesterday's sloth, Mr. H. stayed

unusually late in the forenoon. He is my friend, my father's friend, and

an excellent, sensible man besides; and a man of eighty and upwards may

be allowed to talk long, because in the nature of things he cannot have

long to talk. If I do a task to-day, I hope to send a good parcel on

Monday and keep tryst pretty well.

_July_ 30.--I did better yesterday than I had hoped for--four instead of

three pages, which, considering how my time was cut up by prolonged

morning lounging with friend Haly, was pretty fair. I wrote a good task

before eleven o'clock, but then my good friends twaddled and dawdled for

near two hours before they set off. The time devoted to hospitality,

especially to those whom I can reckon upon as sincere good friends, I

never grudge, but like to "welcome the coming, speed the parting

guest." By my will every guest should part at half-past ten, or arrange

himself to stay for the day.

We had a long walk in a sweltering hot day. Met Mr. Blackwood coming to

call, and walked him on with us, so blinked his visit--_gratias,

domine_!! Asked him for breakfast to-morrow to make amends. I rather

over-walked myself--the heat considered.

_July_ 31st_.--I corrected six sheets and sent them off, with eight

leaves of copy, so I keep forward pretty well. Blackwood the bookseller

came over from Chiefswood to breakfast, and this kept me idle till

eleven o'clock. At twelve I went out with the girls in the sociable, and

called on the family at Bemerside, on Dr.[306] and Mrs. Brewster, and

Mr. Bainbridge at Gattonside House. It was five ere we got home, so

there was a day dished, unless the afternoon does something for us. I am

keeping up pretty well, however, and, after all, visitors will come, and

calls must be made. I must not let Anne forego the custom of well-bred

society.

FOOTNOTES:

[292] Thomas Hamilton, Esq. (brother of Sir William Hamilton, the

Metaphysician), author of _Cyril Thornton_, _Men and Manners in

America_, _Annals of the Peninsular Campaign_, _etc._ Died in 1842.

[293] Bryan Waller Procter, author of _Dramatic Scenes, and other

Poems_, 1819. He died in London in 1874.

[294] A favourite expression of Scott's, from _Robinson Crusoe_.

[295] John Hay Forbes (Lord Medwyn from 1825 to 1852), second son of Sir

William Forbes of Pitsligo. Lord Medwyn died at the age of seventy-eight

in 1854.

[296] _The Highland Widow_.

[297] A favourite exclamation of Sir Walter's, which he had picked up on

his Irish tour, signifying "don't mind it"--_Na-bac-leis_. Compare Sir

Boyle Roche's dream that his head was cut off and placed upon a table:

"'_Quis separabit?_' says the head; '_Naboclish_,' says I, in the same

language."

[298] That Mr. Kinloch was not singular in his opinion has been shown by

the remarks made in the House of Commons (see _ante_, March 17). Lord

Cockburn in his _Trials for Sedition_ says, "With Botany Bay before him,

and money to make himself comfortable in Paris, George Kinloch would

have been an idiot if he had stayed." Mr. Kinloch had just returned to

Scotland.

[299] His neighbour, John Archibald Murray, then living at 122 George

Street.--See p. 133.

[300] See Molière's _l'École des Femmes_.

[301] In 1827 Scott was one day heard saying, as he saw Peter guiding

the plough on the haugh:--"Egad, auld Pepe's whistling at his darg: if

things get round with me, easy will be his cushion!" Old Peter lived

until he was eighty-four. He died at Abbotsford in 1854, where he had

been well cared for, respected, and beloved by all the members of the

family since Sir Walter's death.

[302] Sheridan's _Rivals_, Act II. Sc. 1.

[303] The murder of Weare by Thurtell and Co., at Gill's-Hill in

Hertfordshire (1824). Sir Walter collected printed trials with great

assiduity, and took care always to have the contemporary ballads and

prints bound up with them. He admired particularly this verse of Mr.

Hook's broadside--

"They cut his throat from ear to ear,

His brains they battered in;

His name was Mr. William Weare,

He dwelt in Lyon's Inn."

--J.G.L.

[304] Dr. John Jamieson, formerly minister to a Secession congregation

in Forfar, removed to a like charge in Edinburgh in 1795, where he

officiated for forty-three years; he died in his house in 4 George

Square in 1838, aged seventy-nine.

[305] This novel was passing through the press in 8vo, 12mo, and 18mo,

to complete collective editions in these sizes.--J.G.I.

[306] Afterwards Sir David Brewster. He died at Allerley House on the

Tweed, aged eighty-seven, on February 10, 1868.

AUGUST.

_August_ 1.--Yesterday evening did nothing for the _idlesse_ of the

morning. I was hungry; eat and drank and became drowsy; then I took to

arranging the old plays, of which Terry had brought me about a dozen,

and dipping into them scrambled through two. One, called _Michaelmas

Term_,[307] full of traits of manners; and another a sort of bouncing

tragedy, called the _Hector of Germany, or the Palsgrave_.[308] The

last, worthless in the extreme, is, like many of the plays in the

beginning of the seventeenth century, written to a good tune. The

dramatic poets of that time seem to have possessed as joint-stock a

highly poetical and abstract tone of language, so that the worst of them

often remind you of the very best. The audience must have had a much

stronger sense of poetry in those days than now, since language was

received and applauded at the Fortune or at the Red Bull,[309] which

could not now be understood by any general audience in Great Britain.

This leads far.

This morning I wrote two hours, then out with Tom Purdie, and gave

directions about thinning all the plantations above Abbotsford properly

so called. Came in at one o'clock and now set to work. _Debout, debout,

Lyciscas, debout._[310] Finished four leaves.

_August_ 2.--Well; and to-day I finished before dinner five leaves more,

and I would crow a little about it, but here comes Duty like an old

housekeeper to an idle chambermaid. Hear her very words:--

DUTY.--Oh! you crow, do you? Pray, can you deny that your sitting so

quiet at work was owing to its raining heavily all the forenoon, and

indeed till dinner-time, so that nothing would have stirred out that

could help it, save a duck or a goose? I trow, if it had been a fine

day, by noon there would have been aching of the head, throbbing,

shaking, and so forth, to make an apology for going out.

EGOMET IPSE.--And whose head ever throbbed to go out when it rained,

Mrs. Duty?

DUTY.--_Answer not to me with a fool-born jest_, as your poor friend

Erskine used to say to you when you escaped from his good advice under

the fire of some silly pun. You smoke a cigar after dinner, and I never

check you--drink tea, too, which is loss of time; and then, instead of

writing me one other page, or correcting those you have written out, you

rollick into the woods till you have not a dry thread about you; and

here you sit writing down my words in your foolish journal instead of

minding my advice.

EGO.--Why, Mrs. Duty, I would as gladly be friends with [you] as

Crabbe's[311] tradesman fellow with his conscience; but you should have

some consideration with human frailty.

DUTY.--Reckon not on that. But, however, good-night for the present. I

would only recommend to you to think no thoughts in which I am not

mingled--to read no books in which I have no concern--to write three

sheets of botheration all the six days of the week _per diem_, and on

the seventh to send them to the printer. Thus advising, I heartily bid

you farewell.

EGO.--Farewell, madam (exit Duty) and be d--d to ye for an unreasonable

bitch! "The devil must be in this greedy gled!" as the Earl of Angus

said to his hawk; "will she never be satisfied?"[312] I believe in my

soul she is the very hag who haunted the merchant Abudah.[313]

I'll have my great chest upstairs exorcised, but first I'll take a nap

till supper, which must take place within ten minutes.

_August_ 3.--Wrote half a task in the morning. From eleven till

half-past eight in Selkirk taking precognitions about a _row_, and came

home famished and tired. Now, Mrs. Duty, do you think there is no other

Duty of the family but yourself? Or can the Sheriff-depute neglect his

Duty, that the author may mind _his_? The thing cannot be; the people of

Selkirk must have justice as well as the people of England books. So the

two Duties may go pull caps about it. My conscience is clear.

_August_ 4.--Wrote to Miss Edgeworth on her sister's marriage, which

consumed the better part of the morning. I must read for Marengo.

_Item_, I must look at the pruning. _Item_, at the otter hunt; but my

hope is constant to make up a good day's task notwithstanding. Failed in

finding the otter, and was tired and slept, and did but a poor day's

work.

_August_ 6.--Wrote to-day a very good day's work. Walked to Chiefswood,

and saw old Mrs. Tytler,[314] a friend when life was young. Her husband,

Lord Woodhouselee, was a kind, amiable, and accomplished man; and when

we lived at Lasswade Cottage, soon after my marriage, we saw a great

deal of the family, who were very kind to us as newly entered on the

world.[315] Walked home, and worked in the evening; four leaves

finished.

_August_ 7.--My niece Anne leaves us this morning, summoned back from

one scene of distress to another. Her uncle, David Macculloch, is

extremely ill--a paralytic stroke, I fancy. She is a charming girl,

lady-like in thought and action, and very pleasant in society. We are to

dine to-day with our neighbours at Gattonside. Meantime I will avail

myself of my disposition to labour, and work instead of journalising.

Mr. H. Cranstoun[316] looked in a morning call. He is become extremely

deaf. He gave me a letter from the Countess Purgstall, his sister, which

I have not the heart to open, so many reproaches I have deserved for not

writing. It is a sad thing, though, to task eyes as hard wrought as mine

to keep up correspondence. Dined at Gattonside.[317]

_August_ 8.--Wrote my task this morning, and now for walk. Dine to-day

at Chiefswood; have company to-morrow. Why, this is dissipation! But no

matter, Mrs. Duty, if the task is done. "Ay, but," says she, "you ought

to do something extra--provide against a rainy day." Not I, I'll make a

rainy day provide against a fair one, Mrs. Duty. I write twice as much

in bad weather. Seriously, I write fully as much as I ought. I do not

like this dull aching in the chest and the back, and its giving way to

exercise shows that it originates in remaining too long in a sitting

posture. So I'll take the field, while the day is good.

_August_ 9.--I wrote only two leaves to-day, but with as many additions

as might rank for three. I had a long and warm walk. Mrs. Tytler of

Woodhouselee, the Hamiltons, and Colonel Ferguson dined here. How many

early stories did the old lady's presence recall! She might almost be my

mother, yet there we sat, like two people of another generation, talking

of things and people the rest knew nothing of. When a certain period of

life is survived, the difference of years between the survivors, even

when considerable, becomes of much less consequence.

_August_ 10.--Rose early, and wrote hard till two, when I went with Anne

to Minto. The place, being new to my companion, gave her much amusement.

We found the Scotts of Harden, etc., and had a very pleasant party. I

like Lady M. particularly, but missed my facetious and lively friend,

Lady A[nna] M[aria].[318] It is the fashion for women and silly men to

abuse her as a blue-stocking. If to have wit, good sense, and

good-humour, mixed with a strong power of observing, and an equally

strong one of expressing the result, be _blue_, she shall be as blue as

they will. Such cant is the refuge of persons who fear those who they

[think] can turn them into ridicule; it is a common trick to revenge

supposed raillery with good substantial calumny. Slept at Minto.

_August_ 11.--I was up as usual, and wrote about two leaves, meaning to

finish my task at home; but found my Sheriff-substitute[319] here on my

return, which took up the evening. But I shall finish the volume on

Sunday; that is less than a month after beginning it. The same exertion

would bring the book out at Martinmas, but December is a better time.

_August_ 12.--Wrote a little in the morning; then Duty and I have

settled that this is to be a kind of holiday, providing the volume be

finished to-morrow. I went to breakfast at Chiefswood, and after that

affair was happily transacted, I wended me merrily to the Black Cock

Stripe, and there caused Tom Purdie and John Swanston cut out a

quantity of firs. Got home about two o'clock, and set to correct a set

of proofs. James Ballantyne presages well of this work, but is afraid of

inaccuracies--so am I--but things must be as they may. There is a kind

of glamour about me, which sometimes makes me read dates, etc., in the

proof-sheets, not as they actually do stand, but as they ought to stand.

I wonder if a pill of holy trefoil would dispel this fascination.

By the way, John Swanston measured a young shoot that was growing

remarkably, and found that for three days successively it grew half an

inch every day. Fine-Ear[320] used to hear the grass grow--how far off

would he have heard this extravagant rapidity of vegetation? The tree is

a silver fir or spruce in the patch at the Green-tongue park.

_August_ 13.--Yesterday I was tired of labouring in the rough ground.

Well, I must be content to feel my disabilities increase. One sure thing

is, that all wise men will soon contrive to lay aside inclination when

performance grows toilsome. I have hobbled over many a rough heugh in my

day--no wonder if I must sing at last--

"Thus says the auld man to the aik tree,

Sair failed, hinny, since I kenn'd thee."

But here are many a mile of smooth walk, just when I grow unable to face

bent and brae, and here is the garden when all fails. To a sailor the

length of his quarter-deck is a good space of exercising ground.

I wrote a good task to-day, then walked to the lake, then came back by

three o'clock, hungering and thirsting to finish the volume. I have

seldom such fits of voluntary industry, so Duty shall have the benefit.

Finished volume iv. this evening--_Deo Gratias_.

_August_ 14.--This is a morning I have not seen many a day, for it

appears to set in for a rainy day. It has not kept its word though. I

was seized by a fit of the "clevers," and finished my task by twelve

o'clock, and hope to add something in the evening. I was guilty,

however, of some waywardness, for I began volume v. of _Boney_ instead

of carrying on the _Canongate_ as I proposed. The reason, however, was

that I might not forget the information I had acquired about the Treaty

of Amiens.

_August_ 15.--The weather seems decidedly broken. Yesterday, indeed,

cleared up, but this day seems to persevere in raining. _Naboclish!_

It's a rarity nowadays. I write on, though a little afflicted with the

oppression on my chest. Sometimes I think it is something dangerous, but

as it always goes away on change of posture, it cannot be speedily so. I

want to finish my task, and then good-night. I will never relax my

labour in these affairs, either for fear of pain or love of life. I will

die a free man, if hard working will do it. Accordingly, to-day I

cleared the ninth leaf, which is the tenth part of a volume, in two

days--four and a half leaves a day. Walter and Jane, with Mrs. Jobson,

are arrived to interrupt me.

_August_ 16.--God be praised for restoring to me my dear children in

good health, which has made me happier than anything that has happened

these several months. Walter and Jane appear cordial and happy in each

other; the greatest blessing Heaven can bestow on them or me who witness

it. If we had Lockhart and Sophia, there would be a meeting of the

beings dearest to me in life. Walked to Huntly Burn, where I found a

certain lady on a visit--so youthy, so beautiful, so strong in

voice--with sense and learning--above all, so fond of good conversation,

that, in compassion to my eyes, ears, and understanding, I bolted in the

middle of a tremendous shower of rain, and rather chose to be wet to the

skin than to be bethumped with words at that rate. There seemed more

than I of the same opinion, for Col Ferguson chose the ducking rather

than the conversation. Young Mr. Surtees came this evening.

_August_ 17.--Wrote half a leaf short of my task, having proofs, etc.,

to correct, and being called early to walk with the ladies. I have

gained three leaves in the two following days, so I cannot blame myself.

_Sat cito si sat bene. Sat boni_ I am sure--I may say--a truly execrable

pun that; hope no one will find it out.

In the evening we had music from the girls, and the voice of the harp

and viol were heard in my halls once more, which have been so long

deprived of mirth. It is with a mixed sensation I hear these sounds. I

look on my children and am happy; and yet every now and then a pang

shoots across my heart. It seems so strange that my poor wife should not

be there. But enough of this. Colonel Ferguson dined.

_August_ 18.--Again I fell a half page behind, being summoned out too

early for my task, but I am still two leaves before on the whole week.

It is natural to see as much of these young people as I can. Walter

talks of the Ionian Islands. It is an awful distance. A long walk in

very warm weather. Music in the evening.

_August_ 19.--This morning wrote none, excepting extracts, etc., being

under the necessity of reading and collating a great deal, which lasted

till one o'clock or thereabouts, when Dr. and Mrs. Brewster and their

young people came to spend a day of happiness at the lake. We were met

there by Captain and Mrs. Hamilton and a full party. Since the days of

Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia,[321] these days of appointed sport and

happiness have seldom answered; but we came off indifferently well. We

did not indeed catch much fish; but we lounged about in a delightful

day, eat and drank--and the children, who are very fine infantry, were

clamorously enjoying themselves. We sounded the loch in two or three

different places--the deepest may be sixty feet. I was accustomed to

think it much more, but your deepest pools, like your deepest

politicians and philosophers, often turn out more shallow than was

expected. The whole party dine with us.

_August_ 20.--Wrote four leaves. The day wet and rainy, though not

uniformly so. No temptation, however, to play truant; so this will make

some amends for a blank day yesterday. I am far in advance of the press,

but it is necessary if I go to Drumlanrig on Wednesday as I intend, and

to Lochore next week, which I also meditate. This will be no great

interruption, however, if I can keep the _Canongate_ moving, for I shall

be more than half a volume in advance with _Napoleon_.

_August_ 21.--Wrought out my task, though much bothered with a cold in

my head and face, how caught I know not. Mrs. Crampton, wife of the

Surgeon-General[322] in Ireland, sends to say she is hereabouts, so we

ask her. Hospitality must not be neglected, and most hospitable are the

Cramptons. All the "calliachs"[323] from Huntly Burn are to be here, and

Anne wishes we may have enough of dinner. Naboclish! it is hoped there

will be a _pièce de résistance_.

_August_ 22.--Mrs. and Misses Crampton departed. I was rather sorry to

give them such brief entertainment, for they were extremely kind. But

going to Eildon Hall to-day, and to Drumlanrig to-morrow, there was

nothing more could be done for them. It is raining now "_successfully_,"

as old Macfarlane of the Arroquhar used to say. What is the odds? We get

a soaking before we cross the Birkendailly--wet against dry, ten to one.

_August_ 23 [_Bittock's Bridge_].--Set off cheerily with Walter,

Charles, and Surtees in the sociable, to make our trip to Drumlanrig. We

breakfasted at Mr. Boyd's, Broadmeadows, and were received with Yarrow

hospitality. From thence climbed the Yarrow, and skirted Saint Mary's

Lake, and ascended the Birkhill path, under the moist and misty

influence of the _genius loci_. Never mind; my companions were merry and

I cheerful. When old people can be with the young without fatiguing them

or themselves, their tempers derive the same benefits which some

fantastic physicians of old supposed accrued to their constitutions from

the breath of the young and healthy. You have not, cannot again have,

their gaiety of pleasure in seeing sights, but still it reflects itself

upon you, and you are cheered and comforted. Our luncheon eaten in the

herd's cottage; but the poor woman saddened me unawares, by asking for

poor Charlotte, whom she had often seen there with me. She put me in

mind that I had come twice over those hills and bogs with a

wheeled-carriage, before the road, now an excellent one, was made. I

knew it was true; but, on my soul, looking where we must have gone, I

could hardly believe I had been such a fool. For riding, pass if you

will; but to put one's neck in such a venture with a wheeled-carriage

was too silly. Here we are, however, at Bittock's Inn for this night.

_Drumlanrig, August_ 24.--This morning lunched at Parkgate under a very

heavy shower, and then pushed on to Drumlanrig, where I was pleased to

see the old Castle, and old servants solicitous and anxious to be civil.

What visions does not this magnificent old house bring back to me! The

exterior is much improved since I first knew it. It was then in the

state of dilapidation to which it had been abandoned by the celebrated

old Q.,[324] and was indeed scarce wind and water tight. Then the whole

wood had been felled, and the outraged castle stood in the midst of

waste and desolation, excepting a few scattered old stumps, not judged

worth the cutting. Now, the whole has been, ten or twelve years since,

completely replanted, and the scattered seniors look as graceful as

fathers surrounded by their children. The face of this immense estate

has been scarcely less wonderfully changed. The scrambling tenants, who

held a precarious tenure of lease under the Duke of Queensberry, at the

risk (as actually took place) of losing their possession at his death,

have given room to skilful and labouring men, working their farms

regularly, and enjoying comfortable houses and their farms at a fair

rent, which is enough to forbid idleness, but not enough to overpower

industry.

_August_ 25.--Here are Lord and Lady Home,[325] Charles Douglas,[326]

Lord and Lady Charlotte Stopford.[327] I grieve to say the last, though

as beautiful as ever, is extremely thin, and looks delicate. The Duke

himself has grown up into a graceful and apparently strong young man,

and received us most kindly. I think he will be well qualified to

sustain his difficult and important task. The heart is excellent, so are

the talents,--good sense and knowledge of the world, picked up at one of

the great English schools (and it is one of their most important

results), will prevent him from being deceived; and with perfect

good-nature, he has a natural sense of his own situation, which will

keep him from associating with unworthy companions. God bless him! His

father and I loved each other well, and his beautiful mother had as much

of the angel as is permitted to walk this earth. I see the balcony from

which they welcomed poor Charlotte and me, long ere the ascent was

surmounted, streaming out their white handkerchiefs from the

battlements. There were _four_ merry people that day--now one sad

individual is all that remains. _Singula praedantur anni_. I had a long

walk to-day through the new plantation, the Duchess's Walk by the Nith,

etc. (formed by Prior's _Kitty young and gay_[328]); fell in with the

ladies, but their donkeys outwalked me--a flock of sheep afterwards

outwalked me, and I begin to think, on my conscience, that a snail put

in training might soon outwalk me. I must lay the old salve to the old

sore, and be thankful for being able to walk at all.

Nothing was written to-day, my writing-desk having been forgot at

Parkgate, but Tom Crighton kindly fetched it up to-day, so something

more or less may be done to-morrow morning--and now to dress.

[_Bittock's Bridge_,] _August_ 26.--We took our departure from the

friendly halls of Drumlanrig this morning after breakfast and

leave-taking. I trust this young nobleman will be

"A hedge about his friends,

A hackle to his foes."[329]

I would have him not quite so soft-natured as his grandfather, whose

kindness sometimes mastered his excellent understanding. His father had

a temper which better lumped with my humour. Enough of ill-nature to

keep your good-nature from being abused is no bad ingredient in their

disposition who have favours to bestow.[330]

In coming from Parkgate here I intended to accomplish a purpose which I

have for some years entertained, of visiting Lochwood, the ancient seat

of the Johnstones, of which King James said, when he visited it, that

the man who built it must have been a thief in his heart. It rained

heavily, however, which prevented my making this excursion, and indeed I

rather overwalked myself yesterday, and have occasion for rest.

"So sit down, Robin, and rest thee."

_Abbotsford, August_ 27.--To-day we journeyed through the hills and

amongst the storms; the weather rather bullying than bad. We viewed the

Grey Mare's Tail, and I still felt confident in crawling along the

ghastly bank by which you approach the fall. I will certainly get some

road of application to Mr. Hope Johnstone, to pray him to make the place

accessible. We got home before half-past five, having travelled forty

miles.

_Blair-Adam, August_ 28.--Set off with Walter and Jane at seven o'clock,

and reached this place in the middle of dinner-time. By some of my not

unusual blunders we had come a day before we were expected. Luckily, in

this ceremonious generation, there are still houses where such blunders

only cause a little raillery, and Blair-Adam is one of them. My

excellent friend is in high health and spirits, to which the presence of

Sir Frederick adds not a little.[331] His lady is here--a beautiful

woman, whose countenance realises all the poetic dreams of Byron. There

is certainly [a] something of full maturity of beauty which seems framed

to be adoring and adored, and it is to be found in the full dark eye,

luxuriant tresses, and rich complexion of Greece, and not among the

pale unripened beauties of the north. What sort of a mind this exquisite

casket may contain is not so easily known. She is anxious to please, and

willing to be pleased, and, with her striking beauty, cannot fail to

succeed.

_August_ 29.--To-day we designed to go to Lochore. But "heigho! the wind

and the rain." Besides Mrs. and Admiral Adam, Mrs. Loch, and Miss Adam,

I find here Mr. Impey, son of that Sir Elijah celebrated in Indian

history. He has himself been in India, but has, with a great deal of

sense and observation, much better address than always falls to the

share of the Eastern adventurer. The art of quiet and entertaining

conversation, which is always easy as well as entertaining, is chiefly

known in England. In Scotland we are pedantic and wrangle, or we run

away with the harrows on some topic we chance to be discursive upon. In

Ireland they have too much vivacity, and are too desirous to make a

show, to preserve the golden mean. They are the Gascons of Britain.

George Ellis was the best converser I ever knew; his patience and good

breeding made me often ashamed of myself going off at score upon some

favourite topic. Richard Sharp is so celebrated for this peculiar gift

as to be generally called Conversation Sharp.[332] The worst of this

talent is that it seems to lack sincerity. You never know what are the

real sentiments of a good converser, or at least it is very difficult to

discover to what extent he entertains them. His politeness is

inconsistent with energy. For forming a good converser, good taste and

extensive information and accomplishment are the principal requisites,

to which must be added an easy and elegant delivery and a well-toned

voice. I think the higher order of genius is not favourable to this

talent.

Mrs. Impey, an intelligent person, likes music, and particularly Scotch

airs, which few people play better than Mrs. Lockhart and Miss Louisa

Adam. Had a letter from Mr. William Upcott, London Institution,

proposing to me to edit an edition of Garrick's Correspondence, which I

declined by letter of this day. Thorough decided downfall of rain.

Nothing for it but patience and proof-sheets.

_August_ 30.--The weather scarce permitted us more licence than

yesterday, yet we went down to Lochore, and Walter and I perambulated

the property, and discussed the necessity of a new road from the

south-west, also that of planting some willows along the ditches in the

low grounds. Returned to Blair-Adam to dinner.

_Abbotsford, August_ 31.--Left Blair at seven in the morning. Transacted

business with Cadell and Ballantyne, but our plans will, I think, be

stopped or impeded by the operations before the Arbiter, Mr. Irving, who

leans more to the side of the opposite [party] than I expected. I have a

letter from Gibson, found on my arrival at Abbotsford, which gives

rather a gloomy account of that matter. It seems strange that I am to be

bound to write for men who have broken every bargain with me.

Arrived at Abbotsford at eight o'clock at night.

FOOTNOTES:

[307] By Middleton, 1697.

[308] The Hector of Germanie, or the Palsgrave Prime Elector. An

Honourable History by William Smith. 4to, 1615.

[309] Two London playhouses.--See Knight's _Biography of Shakespeare_.

[310] Molière's _La Princesse d'Élide_ (Prologue).

[311] See Crabbe's Tale of _The Struggles of Conscience_.--J.G.L.

[312] _Tales of a Grandfather_, Miscell. Prose Works, vol. xxiii. p. 72.

[313] See _Tales of the Genii_. _The Talisman of Oromanes_.

[314] Eldest daughter of William Fraser of Balnain.--See Burgon's _Life

of P.F. Tytler_, 8vo, Lond. 1859. Mrs. Tytler died in London, aged

eighty-four, in 1837.

[315] Alexr. Fraser Tytler, 1747-1813. Besides his acknowledged works,

Lord Woodhouselee published anonymously a translation of Schiller's

_Robbers_ as early as 1792.

[316] Henry Cranstoun, elder brother of Lord Corehouse and Countess

Purgstall. He resided for some years near Abbotsford, at the Pavilion on

the Tweed, where he died in 1843, aged eighty-six. An interesting

account of Countess Purgstall is given by Basil Hall, who was with her

in Styria at her death in 1835. This very early friend of Scott's was

thought by Captain Hall to have been the prototype of Diana

Vernon--"that safest of secret keepers."--See _Schloss Hainfeld_, 8vo,

Lond. 1836.

[317] The property of Gattonside had been purchased in 1824 by George

Bainbridge of Liverpool, a keen angler, author of _The Fly Fisher's

Guide_, 8vo, Liverpool, 1816.

[318] Lady Anna Maria Elliot, see _ante_, p. 133.

[319] W. Scott of Maxpopple.

[320] In the fairy tale of Countess D'Aulnoy--_Fortunio_.

[321] See Johnson's _Rambler_, Nos. 204 and 205.

[322] Afterwards Sir Philip Crampton. "The Surgeon-General struck Sir

Walter as being more like Sir Humphry Davy than any man he had met, not

in person only, but in the liveliness and range of his talk."--_Life_,

vol. viii. p. 23.

[323] Gaelic for "old women."

[324] William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry, succeeded, on the

death of his kinsman, Duke Charles, in 1778. He died in 1810 at the age

of eighty-six, when his titles and estates were divided between the Duke

of Buccleuch, Lord Douglas, the Marquis of Queensberry, and the Earl of

Wemyss.

See Wordsworth's indignant lines beginning:

"Degenerate Douglas, oh the unworthy Lord";

also _George Selwyn and his Contemporaries_, 4 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1843-4.

[325] Alexander, tenth Earl of Home, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth,

daughter of Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch.

[326] Charles, second son of Archibald Lord Douglas.

[327] James Thomas, Viscount Stopford, afterwards fourth Earl of

Courtown, and his wife, Lady Charlotte, sister of the then Duke of

Buccleuch, at that time still in his minority. Lady Charlotte died

within eighteen months of this date.

[328]

"Thus Kitty, beautiful and young,

And wild as colt untamed."

Prior's _Female Phaeton_.

Catherine Hyde, daughter of Henry Earl of Clarendon, and wife of Charles

Duke of Queensberry. She was the friend of Gay, and her beauty, wit, and

oddities have been celebrated in prose and rhyme by the wits and poets

of two generations. Fifty-six years after Prior had sung her "mad

Grace's" praises, Walpole added those two lines to the Female Phaeton--

"To many a Kitty Love his car, will for a day engage,

But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, obtained it for an age."

She died at a great age in 1777. For her letter to George II. when

forbid the Court, see Agar Ellis, _Historical Inquiries_, Lond. 1827, p.

40.

[329] Ballad on young Rob Roy's abduction of Jean Key, Cromek's

_Collections_.--J.G.L.

[330] See Letter to C.K. Sharpe, from Drumlanrig, vol. ii. pp. 369-71.

[331] Sir Frederick Adam, son of the Chief Commissioner--a distinguished

soldier, afterwards High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and

subsequently Governor of Madras; he died in 1853.

[332] Mr. Richard Sharp published in 1834 a very elegant and interesting

little volume of _Letters and Essays, in Prose and Verse_.--See

_Quarterly Review_, 102.--J.G.L. He had been Member of Parliament from

1806 to 1820, and died on the 30th of March 1835 at the age of

seventy-six.

SEPTEMBER

_September_ 1.--Awaked with a headache, which the reconsideration of

Gibson's news did not improve. We save _Bonaparte_ however, and that is

a great thing. I will not be downcast about it, let the worst come that

can; but I wish I saw that worst. It is the devil to be struggling

forward, like a man in the mire, and making not an inch by your

exertions, and such seems to be my fate. Well! I have much to comfort

me, and I will take comfort. If there be further wrath to come, I shall

be glad that I bear it alone. Poor Charlotte was too much softened by

prosperity to look adverse circumstances courageously in the face. Anne

is young, and has Sophia and Jane to trust to for assistance.

_September_ 2.--Wrote this morning, but only two pages or thereabouts.

At twelve o'clock set out with Anne and Walter to visit at Makerstoun,

but the road between Makerstoun and Merton being very bad, we drove, I

dare say, thirty miles in going and coming, by a circuitous route, and

only got home at half-past seven at night. Saw Lady Brisbane Makdougall,

but not Sir Thomas.[333] Thought of old Sir Henry and his older father

Sir George. Received a box of Australian seeds, forwarded by Andrew

Murray, now head-gardener to the Governor, whom I detected a clever boy,

among my labourers in 1812, and did a little for him. It is pleasant to

see men thrive and be grateful at the same time, so good luck to "Andrew

Mora," as we called him.

_September_ 3.--Made up my necessary task for yesterday and to-day also,

but not more, writing very heavily. Cousin Archie Swinton came to

dinner. We had a dish of cousinred of course--and _of auld lang

syne_.[334]

_September_ 4.--Archie Swinton left us this morning early. I wrote from

seven to half-past two; but, partly that I had five proof-sheets to

correct, partly that like old John Fraser[335] "I was not very cleever

to-day." I made out but a page and a half.

_September_ 5.--Wrote task and half a page more. Terry arrived and

brought with him a Mr. Bruce, from Persia, with an introduction,

forsooth, from Mr. Blackwood. I will move a _quo warranto_ against this

species of introduction; and the good gentleman is to be here, he

informs me, for two days. He is a dark, foreign-looking man, of small

stature, and rather blunt manners, which may be easily accounted for by

his having been in the East for thirty years. He has a considerable

share of information, and made good play after dinner.

_September_ 6.--Walter being to return to Ireland for three weeks set

off to-day, and has taken Surtees and Charles with him. I fear this is

but a wild plan, but the prospect seemed to make them so happy that I

could not find in my heart to say "No" sufficiently peremptorily. So

away they all went this morning to be as happy as they can. Youth is a

fine carver and gilder. Went down to Huntly Burn, and dawdled about

while waiting for the carriage to bring me back. Mr. Bruce and Colonel

Ferguson pottered away about Persia and India, and I fell asleep by the

fireside. Here is a fine spate of work--a day diddled away, and nothing

to show for it! I must write letters now, there is nothing else for it.

But--yaw--yaw--I must take a nap first. I had a letter from Jem

Ballantyne, plague on him! full of remonstrance, deep and solemn, upon

the carelessness of _Bonaparte_. The rogue is right too. But as to

correcting my style to the

"Jemmy jemmy linkum feedle"

tune of what is called fine writing, I'll be d----d if I do. Drew £12 in

favour of Charles for his Irish jaunt; same time exhorted him to make

himself as expensive to Walter, in the way of eating and drinking, as he

could. Mr. and Mrs. Impey arrived to dinner.

_September_ 7.--Mr. Bruce, the bastinadoed, left us this morning

promising wine from Shiraz and arms from India. From our joint

observation he must be a half-caste, probably half an Arab. He told us

of his having been taken by pirates in the Arabian Gulf, and having

received two thousand bastinadoes on the soles of his feet, after which

he was buried in a heap of dung by way of cure. Though the matter was

certainly serious enough to the sufferer, yet it excited our suppressed,

or scarce suppressed, mirth. Alas! let never traveller tell any distress

which borders on the ludicrous if he desires to excite the sympathy of

the audience.

Another thing he mentioned was the mode of seasoning timber for

shipbuilding in the Arabian Gulf. They bury it in the sand within

water-mark, and leave it exposed to the flux and reflux of the tide for

six months at least, but often for twelve or eighteen. The tendency to

vegetation which produces the dry-rot is thus prevented effectually, and

the ships built of this wood last for twenty years.

We drove to Ashestiel in the morning, after I had written a good task,

or nearly so (nay, I lie, it wanted half a page), and passed a pleasant

day. Terry read _Bobadil_ in the evening, which he has, I think,

improved.

_September_ 8.--I have rubbed up, by collation with Mr. Impey, Sir

Frederick Adam's idea of the Greeks. He deeply regrets the present war

as premature, undertaken before knowledge and rational education had

extended themselves sufficiently. The neighbourhood of the Ionian

Islands was fast producing civilisation; and as knowledge is power, it

is clear that the example of Europeans, and the opportunities of

education thereby afforded, must soon have given them an immense

superiority over the Turk. This premature war has thrown all back into a

state of barbarism. It was precipitated by the agents of Russia. Sir

Frederick spoke most highly of Byron, the soundness of his views, the

respect in which he was held--his just ideas of the Grecian cause and

character, and the practical and rational wishes which he formed for

them. Singular that a man whose conduct in his own personal affairs had

been anything but practical should be thus able to stand by the helm of

a sinking state! Sir Frederick thinks he might have done much for them

if he had lived. The rantipole friends of liberty, who go about freeing

nations with the same success which Don Quixote had in redressing

wrongs, have, of course, blundered everything which they touched. The

Impeys left us to-day, and Captain Hugh Scott and his lady arrived. Task

is bang-up.

_September_ 9.--I begin to fear _Nap_. will swell to seven volumes. I

have a long letter from James B. threatening me with eight; but that is

impossible. The event of his becoming Emperor is the central point of

his history. Now I have just attained it, and it is the centre of the

third volume. Two volumes and a half may be necessary to complete the

whole. Walked with Hugh Scott up the Rhymer's Glen, and round by the

lake. Mr. Bainbridge of Gattonside House dined, also Colonel Ferguson.

Was bang up to my task again this day.

_September_ 10.--Corrected proof-sheets in the morning, then immured

myself to write, the more willingly that the day seemed showery; but I

found myself obliged to read and study the map so much that I did not

get over half a sheet written. Walked with Hugh Scott through Haxell

Cleuch. Great pleasure to show the young wood to any who understands

them well.

_September_ 11.--Jane and her mother go into town this morning, and Anne

with them, to look out a lodging for us during the time we must pass in

town. It seems strange to have this to do, having had always my father's

house or my own to go to. But--_Sic transit gloria mundi_.

Well, it is half-past twelve o'clock, and at length having regulated all

disappointments as to post-horses, and sent three or four servants three

or four miles to remedy blunders, which a little forethought might have

prevented, my family and guests are separated--

"Like youthful steers let loose, east, north, and south."[336]

Miss Miln goes to Stirling; the Scotts to Lessudden; Anne and Jane to

Edinburgh; and I am left alone. I must needs go up and see some

operations about the spring which supplies us with water, though I

calculate my presence is not very necessary. So now--to work--to work.

But I reckoned without my host, or, I should rather say, without my

_guest_. Just as I had drawn in my chair, fitted a new "Bramah" on the

stick, and was preparing to feague it away, I had a call from the son of

an old friend, Mr. Waldie of Henderland. As he left me, enter young

Whytbank and Mr. Auriol Hay[337] of the Lyon Office, and we had a long

armorial chat together, which lasted for some time--then the library was

to be looked at, etc. So, when they went away, I had little better to do

than to walk up to the spring which they are digging, and to go to my

solitary dinner on my return.

_September_ 12.--Notwithstanding what is above said, I made out my task

yesterday, or nearly so, by working after dinner. After all, these

interruptions are not such bad things; they make a man keen of the work

which he is withheld from, and differ in that point much from the

indulgence of an indisposition to labour in your own mind, which

increases by indulgence. _Les fâcheux_ seldom interrupt your purpose

absolutely and entirely--you stick to it for contradiction's sake.

Well, I visited the spring in the morning, and completed my task

afterwards. As I slept for a few minutes in my chair, to which I am more

addicted than I could wish, I heard, as I thought, my poor wife call me

by the familiar name of fondness which she gave me. My recollections on

waking were melancholy enough. These be

"The airy tongues that syllable men's names."[338]

All, I believe, have some natural desire to consider these unusual

impressions as bodements of good or evil to come. But alas! this is a

prejudice of our own conceit. They are the empty echoes of what is past,

not the foreboding voice of what is to come.

I dined at the Club to-day at Selkirk, and acted as croupier. There were

eighteen dined; young men chiefly, and of course young talk. But so it

has been, will be, and must be.

_September_ 13.--Wrote my task in the morning, and thereafter had a

letter from that sage Privy Councillor and booby of a Baronet,----. This

unutterable idiot proposes to me that I shall propose to the Dowager

Duchess of ----, and offers his own right honourable intervention to

bring so beautiful a business to bear. I am struck dumb with the

assurance of his folly--absolutely mute and speechless--and how to

prevent him making me further a fool is not easy, for the wretch has

left me no time to assure him of the absurdity of what he proposes; and

if he should ever hint at such a piece of d----d impertinence, what must

the lady think of my conceit or of my feelings! I will write to his

present quarters, however, that he may, if possible, have warning not to

continue this absurdity.[339]

Dined at Major Scott, my cousin's, where was old Lord Buchan. He, too,

is a prince of Bores, but age has tamed him a little, and like the giant

Pope in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, he can only sit and grin at Pilgrims

as they go past, and is not able to cast a fank[340] over them as

formerly. A few quiet puns seem his most formidable infliction nowadays.

_September_ 14.--I should not have forgotten, among the memorabilia of

yesterday, that Mr. Nasmyth, the dentist, and his family called, and I

showed them the lions, for truly he that has rid a man of the toothache

is well entitled to command a part of his time. _Item_, two young

Frenchmen made their way to our sublime presence in guerdon of a

laudatory copy of French verses sent up the evening before, by way of

"Open Sesame," I suppose. I have not read them, nor shall I. No man that

ever wrote a line despised the _pap_ of praise so heartily as I do.

There is nothing I scorn more, except those who think the ordinary sort

of praise or censure is matter of the least consequence. People have

almost always some private view of distinguishing themselves, or of

gratifying their curiosity--some point, in short, to carry, with which

you have no relation, when they take the trouble to praise you. In

general, it is their purpose to get the person praised to puff away in

return. To me their rank praises no more make amends for their bad

poetry than tainted butter would pass off stale fish.

_September_ 15.--Many proofs to correct and dates to compare. What

signify dates in a true story? I was fidgety after breakfast, owing to

perusing some advices from J. Gibson, poor fellow. I will not be

discouraged, come of things what will. However, I could not write

continuously, but went out by starts, and amused myself by cutting trees

in the avenue. Thus I dawdled till Anne and Jane came home with merry

faces, and raised my spirits of course. After tea I e'en took heart of

grace and finished my task, as I now do this day's journal.

_September_ 16.--Worked hard to-day, and in morning and evening made out

five pages and a half, as much perhaps as one should attempt, yet I was

not overworked. On the contrary, went out with Tom about one o'clock and

cut trees, etc., to clear the avenue; and favour the growth of such

trees as are designed for standards. I received visits too--the Laird of

Bemerside,[341] who had been for nine years in Italy with his

family--also the Laird of Kippielaw. Anne and Jane drove up and called

at the Haining.

I expected James Ballantyne to dinner as he proposed, but the worthy

typographer appeared not. He is sometimes inaccurate in keeping such

appointments, which is not according to the "Academy of compliments."

But in the letter which announced his intended visit, he talked of

having received himself a visit from the Cholera Morbus. I shall be very

sorry if so unwelcome a guest be the cause of the breach of his

appointment.

_September_ 17.--Rather surprised with a letter from Lord Melville,

informing me that he and Mr. Peel had put me into the Commission for

inquiring into the condition of the Colleges in Scotland. I know little

on the subject, but I dare say as much as some of the official persons

who are inserted of course. The want of efficient men is the reason

alleged. I must of course do my best, though I have little hope of being

useful, and the time it will occupy is half ruinous to me, to whom time

is everything. Besides, I suppose the honour is partly meant as an act

of grace for _Malachi_. I shall never repent of that escapade, although

it offended persons for the time whose good opinion I value. J.B.

continues ill at Teviot Grove, as they call it. I am a little anxious

about him.

I finished my task and an extra page--hope to do another before supper.

Accomplished the said diligent purpose.

_September_ 18.--Rainy and gloomy--that small sifting rain driving on an

eastern gale which intermits not. Wrote letters to Lord Melville, etc,

and agreed to act under the Commission. Settled to be at Melville

Castle, Saturday 24th. I fear this will interfere consumedly with

business. I corrected proof-sheets, and wrote a good deal, but intend to

spend the rest of the day in reading and making notes. No bricks to be

made without straw.

[_Jedburgh_,] _September_ 19.--Circuit. Went to poor Mr. Shortreed's,

and regretted bitterly the distress of the family, though they

endeavoured to bear it bravely, and to make my reception as comfortable

and even cheerful as possible. My old friend R.S. gave me a ring found

in a grave at the Abbey, to be kept in memory of his son. I will

certainly preserve it with especial care.[342]

Many trifles at circuit, chiefly owing to the cheap whisky, as they were

almost all riots. One case of assault on a deaf and dumb woman. She was

herself the chief evidence; but being totally without education, and

having, from her situation, very imperfect notions of a Deity, and a

future state, no oath could be administered. Mr. Kinniburgh, teacher of

the deaf and dumb, was sworn interpreter, together with another person,

a neighbour, who knew the accidental or conventional signs which the

poor thing had invented for herself, as Mr. K. was supposed to

understand the more general or natural signs common to people in such a

situation. He went through the task with much address, and it was

wonderful to see them make themselves intelligible to each other by mere

pantomime. Still I did [not] consider such evidence as much to be

trusted to in a criminal case. Several previous interviews had been

necessary between the interpreter and the witness, and this is very much

like getting up a story. Some of the signs, brief in themselves, of

which Mr. K. gave long interpretations, put me in mind of Lord Burleigh

in the _Critic_: "Did he mean all this by the shake of the head?" "Yes,

if he shook his head as I taught him."[343] The man was found not

guilty. Mr. K. told us of a pupil of his whom he restored, as it may be

said, to humanity, and who told him that his ideas of another world were

that some great person in the skies lighted up the sun in the morning as

he saw his mother light her fire, and the stars in the evening as she

kindled a lamp. He said the witness had ideas of truth and falsehood,

which was, I believe, true; and that she had an idea of punishment in a

future state, which I doubt. He confessed she could not give any guess

at its duration, whether temporary or eternal. I should like to know if

Mr. K. is in that respect much wiser than his pupils. Dined, of course,

with Lord Mackenzie, the Judge.

_September_ 20.--Waked after a restless night, in which I dreamed of

poor Tom Shortreed. Breakfasted with the Rev. Dr. Somerville.[344] This

venerable gentleman is one of the oldest of the literary brotherhood--I

suppose about eighty-seven, and except a little deafness quite entire.

Living all his life in good society as a gentleman born--and having,

besides, professional calls to make among the poor--he must know, of

course, much that is curious concerning the momentous changes which have

passed under his eyes. He talks of them accordingly, and has written

something on the subject, but has scarce the force necessary to seize on

the most striking points, "_palabras,_ neighbour Verges,"[345]--gifts

which God gives. The bowl that rolls easiest along the green goes

furthest, and has least clay sticking to it. I have often noticed that a

kindly, placid good-humour is the companion of longevity, and, I

suspect, frequently the leading cause of it. Quick, keen, sharp

observation, with the power of contrast and illustration, disturbs this

easy current of thought. My good friend, the venerable Doctor, will not,

I think, die of that disease.

Called at Nesbit Mill on my cousin Charles. His wife received me better

than I deserved, for I have been a sad neglectful visitor. She has a

very pleasant countenance.

Some of the Circuit lawyers dined here, namely R. Dundas, Borthwick, the

facetious Peter Robertson,[346] Mr. R. Adam Dundas, and with them Henry

Scott of Harden.

_September_ 21.--Our party breakfasted late, and I was heavy-headed, and

did not rise till eight. Had drank a little more wine than usual, but as

our friend Othello says, "that's not much."[347] However, we dawdled

about till near noon ere all my guests left me. Then I walked a little

and cut some wood. Read afterwards. I can't get on without it. How did

I get on before?--that's a secret. Mr. Thomas Tod[348] and his wife came

to dine. We talked of old stories and got over a pleasant evening.

_September_ 22.--Still no writing. We have materials to collect. D---n

you, Mother Duty, hold your tongue! I tell you, you know nothing of the

matter. Besides, I corrected five sheets. I wish you had to do with some

other people, just to teach you the difference. I grant that the day

being exquisite I went and thinned out the wood from the north front of

the house. Read and noted a great deal.

_September_ 23.--Wrought in the morning, but only at reading and proofs.

That cursed battle of Jena is like to cost me more time than it did

Bonaparte to gain it. I met Colonel Ferguson about one, to see his dogs

run. It is a sport I have loved well, but now, I know not why, I find it

little interesting. To be sure I used to gallop, and that I cannot now

do. We had good sport, however, and killed five hares. I felt excited

during the chase, but the feeling was but momentary. My mind was

immediately turned to other remembrances, and to pondering upon the

change which had taken place in my own feelings. The day was positively

heavenly, and the wild hillside, with our little coursing party, was

beautiful to look at. Yet I felt like a man come from the dead, looking

with indifference on that which interested him while living. So it must

be

"When once life's day is near the gloaming."[349]

We dined at Huntly Burn. Kind and comfortable as usual.

_September_ 24.--I made a rally to-day and wrote four pages, or nearly.

Never stirred abroad the whole day, but was made happy after dinner by

the return of Charles and Surtees full of their Irish jaunt, and happy

as young men are with the change of scene. To-morrow I must go to

Melville Castle. I wonder what I can do or say about these

Universities. One thing occurs--the distribution of bursaries only _ex

meritis_. That is, I would have the presentations continue in the

present patrons, but exact that those presented should be qualified by

success in their literary attainments and distinction acquired at school

to hold these scholarships. This seems to be following out the idea of

the founders, who, doubtless, intended the furthering of good

literature. To give education to dull mediocrity is a flinging of the

children's bread to dogs--it is sharpening a hatchet on a razor-strop,

which renders the strop useless, and does no good to the hatchet. Well,

something we will do.

_September_ 25.--Morning spent in making up proofs and copy. Set out for

Melville Castle with Jane, who goes on to her mother at Edinburgh.

Found Lord and Lady M. in great distress. Their son Robert is taken ill

at a Russian town about 350 miles from Moscow--dangerously ill. The

distance increases the extreme distress of the parents, who, however,

bore it like themselves. I was glad to spend a day upon the old terms

with such old friends, and believe my being with them, even in this

moment of painful suspense, as it did not diminish the kindness of my

reception, certainly rather seemed to divert them from the cruel

subject.

Dr. Nicoll, Principal of St. Andrews, dined--a very gentlemanlike

sensible man. We spoke of the visitation, of granting degrees, of public

examinations, of abolishing the election of professors by the Senatus

Academicus (a most pregnant source of jobs), and much beside--but all

desultory--and Lord M. had either nothing particular to say to me, or

was too much engrossed with his family distress to enter upon it. He

proposes to be here in the end of October.

_September_ 26.--Returned to Abbotsford after breakfast. Here is a cool

thing of my friend J.W. C[roker]. The Duke of Clarence, dining at the

Pavilion with the King, happened by choice or circumstance to sit lower

than usual at the table, and being at that time on bad terms with the

Board of Admiralty, took an opportunity to say, that were he king he

would do all that away, and assume the office of Lord High Admiral.

"Your R.H. may act with great prudence," said C[roker]. "The last

monarch who did so was James II." Presently after H.M. asked what they

were talking of. "It's only his R.H. of C," answered C[roker], "who is

so condescending as to tell us what he will do when he is king."

A long letter from R.P. Gillies. I wonder how even he could ask me to

announce myself as the author of _Annotations on German Novels_ which he

is to write.

_September_ 27.--A day of honest labour--but having much to read, proofs

to send off, etc., I was only able to execute my task by three o'clock

P.M. Then I went to direct the cutting of wood along the road in front

of the house. Dined at Chiefswood with Captain and Mrs. Hamilton, Lady

Lucy Whitmore, their guest, and neighbours from Gattonside and Huntly

Burn.

_September_ 28.--Another hard brush, and finished four pages by twelve

o'clock, then drove out to Cowdenknowes, for a morning visit. The house

is ancient and curious, though modernised by vile improvements of a

modern roof and windows. The inhabited part has over the principal door

the letters S.I.H.V.I.H. The first three indicate probably Sir John

Hume, but what are we to make of the rest? I will look at them more

heedfully one day. There is a large room said to have been built for the

reception of Queen Mary; if so, it has been much modernised. The date on

the door is 1576, which would [not] bear out the tradition. The last two

letters probably signify Lady Hume's name, but what are we to make of

the _V_? Dr. Hume thinks it means _Uxor_, but why should that word be in

Latin and the rest in Scotch?

Returned to dinner, corrected proofs, and hope still to finish another

leaf, being in light working humour. Finished the same accordingly.

[_Abbotsford_,] _September_ 29.--- A sort of zeal of working has seized

me, which I must avail myself of. No dejection of mind, and no tremor of

nerves, for which God be humbly thanked. My spirits are neither low nor

high--grave, I think, and quiet--a complete twilight of the mind.

Good news of John Lockhart from Lady Montagu, who most kindly wrote on

that interesting topic.

I wrote five pages, nearly a double task, yet wandered for three hours,

axe in hand, superintending the thinning of the home planting. That does

good too. I feel it give steadiness to my mind. Women, it is said, go

mad much seldomer than men. I fancy, if this be true, it is in some

degree owing to the little manual works in which they are constantly

employed, which regulate in some degree the current of ideas, as the

pendulum regulates the motion of the timepiece. I do not know if this is

sense or nonsense, but I am sensible that if I were in solitary

confinement, without either the power of taking exercise or employing

myself in study, six months would make me a madman or an idiot.

_September_ 30.--Wrote four pages. Honest James Ballantyne came about

five. I had been cutting wood for two hours. He brought his child, a

remarkably fine boy, well-bred, quiet, and amiable. James and I had a

good comfortable chat, the boys being at Gattonside House. I am glad to

see him bear up against misfortune like a man. "Bread we shall eat, or

white or brown," that's the moral of it, Master Muggins.

FOOTNOTES:

[333] Sir Thomas Brisbane, who had formerly commanded a brigade in the

Peninsula. In 1832 he succeeded Sir Walter Scott as President of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh. Sir Thomas had married in 1819 a daughter of

Sir Henry Hay Makdougall of Makerstoun, Bart. Sir Thomas died at

Brisbane House, Ayrshire, in January 1860, in the eighty-seventh year of

his age.

[334] For an account of this family see _The Swintons of that Ilk and

their Cadets_, 4to, 1883, a privately printed volume by A.C. Swinton of

Kimmerghame. In a letter to his friend Swinton in 1814, Scott says that

he had been reading the family pedigree "to my exceeding refreshment."

[335] One of the Abbotsford labourers.

[336] _2 Henry IV_. Act IV. Sc. 2.

[337] Mr. E.W. Auriol Drummond Hay, heir-presumptive at one time of Lord

Kinnoul, was then residing in Edinburgh, owing to his official duties in

the Lyon Office; he took a great interest in archaeological matters, and

was for two years Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries before his

departure as Consul General to the Barbary States. He died at Tangier on

the 1st March 1845.

[338] Milton's _Comus_, v. 208.--J.G.L.

[339] Lady Scott had not been quite four months dead, and the entry of

the preceding day shows how extremely ill-timed was this communication

from a gentleman with whom Sir Walter had never had any intimacy. This

was not the only proposition of the kind that reached him during his

widowhood.--J.G.L.

[340] A coil of rope.

[341] See _Life_, vol. x. 95, and _The Haigs of Bemersyde_, 8vo, Edin.

1881, edited by J. Russell.

[342] Mr. Thomas Shortreed, a young gentleman of elegant taste and

attainments, devotedly attached to Sir Walter, and much beloved in

return, had recently died.--J.G.L.

[343] See Act III. Sc. 1.

[344] The Rev. Dr. Thomas Somerville, minister of Jedburgh, author of

the _History of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Anne_, and other

works, died 14th May 1830, in the ninetieth year of his age, and

sixty-fourth of his ministry.--J.G.L. Autobiographical Memorials of his

_Life and Times_, 1741-1814, 8vo, Edinburgh, were published in 1861.

[345] _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 5.

[346] Afterwards Judge in the Court of Session from 1843, author of

_Gleams of Thought reflected from Milton_, etc. It was of this witty and

humorous judge Mr. Lockhart wrote the sportive lines:--

"Here lies that peerless paper peer Lord Peter,

Who broke the laws of God and man and metre."

Lord Robertson died in 1855.

[347] Act III. Sc. 3.

[348] One of Scott's old High School mates.--_Life_, vol. i. p. 163.

[349] Burns's _Epistle to J. Smith_.

OCTOBER

_October_ 1.--Wrote my task, then walked from one till half-past four.

Dogs took a hare. They always catch one on Sunday--a Puritan would say

the devil was in them. I think I shall get more done this evening. I

would fain conclude the volume at the Treaty of Tilsit, which will make

it a pretty long one, by the by. J.B. expressed himself much pleased

with _Nap_., which gives me much courage. He is gloomy enough when

things are not well. And then I will try something at my _Canongate_.

They talk about the pitcher going to the well; but if it goes not to the

well, how shall we get water? It will bring home none when it stands on

the shelf, I trow. In literature, as in love, courage is half the

battle.

"The public born to be controlled

Stoops to the forward and the bold."

_October_ 2.--Wrote my task. Went out at one and wrought in the wood

till four. I was made happy by a letter from my nephew, little Walter,

as we used to call him, from his age and size, compared to those of his

cousin. He has been kindly received at Bombay by the Governor

Mountstuart Elphinstone, and by Sir Thomas Bradford. He is taking his

ground, I think, prudently, and is likely to get on. Already first

Lieutenant of Engineers--that is well to begin with.

Colonel Ferguson, Miss Margaret, and some ladies, friends of theirs,

dine, also Mr. and Mrs. Laidlaw, and James Laidlaw, and young Mr. N.

Milne.

_October_ 3.--I wrote my task as usual, but, strange to tell, there is a

want of paper. I expect some to-day. In the meantime, to avoid all

quarrel with Dame Duty, I cut up some other leaves into the usual

statutory size. They say of a fowl that if you draw a chalk line on a

table, and lay chick-a-diddle down with his bill upon it, the poor thing

will imagine himself opposed by an insurmountable barrier, which he will

not attempt to cross. Suchlike are one-half of the obstacles which serve

to interrupt our best resolves, and such is my pretended want of paper.

It is like Sterne's want of _sous_ when he went to relieve the _Pauvre

Honteux_.

_October_ 4.--I ought to record with gratitude to God Almighty the

continued health of body and mind, which He hath vouchsafed to grant me.

I have had of late no accesses either of bile or of nervous affection,

and by mixing exercise with literary labour, I have escaped the _tremor

cordis_ which on other occasions has annoyed me cruelly. I went to the

inspection of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, by Colonel Thornhill, 7th

Hussars. The Colonel is a remarkably fine-looking man, and has a good

address. His brow bears token of the fatigues of war. He is a great

falconer, and has promised to fly his hawks on Friday for my amusement,

and to spend the day at Abbotsford. The young Duke of B. was on the

field looking at the corps, most of whom are his tenants. They did very

well, and are fine, smart young men, and well mounted. Too few of them

though, which is a pity. The exercise is a work which in my time I have

loved well.

Finished my task at night.

_October_ 5.--I was thinking this morning that my time glided away in a

singularly monotonous manner, like one of those dark grey days which

neither promise sunshine nor threaten rain; too melancholy for

enjoyment, too tranquil for repining. But this day has brought a change

which somewhat shakes my philosophy. I find by a letter from J. Gibson

that I _may_ go to London without danger, and if I may, I in a manner

_must_, to examine the papers in the Secretary of State's office about

_Bon_. when at Saint Helena. The opportunity having been offered must be

accepted, and yet I had much rather stay at home. Even the prospect of

seeing Sophia and Lockhart must be mingled with pain, yet this is

foolish too. Lady Hamilton[350] writes me that Pozzo di Borgo,[351] the

Russian Minister at Paris, is willing to communicate to me some

particulars of Bonaparte's early life. Query--might I not go on there?

In for a penny, in for a pound. I intend to take Anne with me, and the

pleasure will be great to her, who deserves much at my hand.

_October_ 6.--Charles and his friend Surtees left us this morning.

Went to see Colonel Thornhill's hawks fly. Some part of the amusement is

very beautiful, particularly the first flight of the hawks, when they

sweep so beautifully round the company, jingling their bells from time

to time, and throwing themselves into the most elegant positions as they

gaze about for their prey. But I do not wonder that the impatience of

modern times has renounced this expensive and precarious mode of

sporting. The hawks are liable to various misfortunes, and are besides

addicted to fly away; one of ours was fairly lost for the day, and one

or two went off without permission, but returned. We killed a crow and

frightened a snipe. There are, however, ladies and gentlemen enough to

make a gallant show on the top of Mintlaw Kipps. The falconer made a

fine figure--a handsome and active young fellow with the falcon on his

wrist. The Colonel was most courteous, and named a hawk after me, which

was a compliment. The hawks are not named till they have merited that

distinction. I walked about six miles and was not fatigued.

There dined with us Colonel Thornhill, Clifton, young Whytbank, Spencer

Stanhope, and his brother, with Miss Tod and my old friend Locker,[352]

Secretary to Greenwich Hospital. We did not break up the party till one

in the morning, and were very well amused.

_October_ 7.--A weary day of rain. Locker and I chatted from time to

time, and I wrought not at _Boney_, but upon the prose works, of which I

will have a volume ready to send in on Monday. I got a letter from John

Gibson, with an offer by Longman for _Napoleon_ of ten thousand five

hundred guineas,[353] which I have advised them to accept. Also I hear

there is some doubt of my getting to London, from the indecision of

these foolish Londoners.

I don't care whether I go or no! And yet it is unpleasant to see how

one's motions depend on scoundrels like these. Besides, I would like to

be there, were it but to see how the cat jumps. One knows nothing of the

world, if you are absent from it so long as I have been.

_October_ 8.--Locker left me this morning. He is of opinion the ministry

must soon assume another form, but that the Whigs will not come in. Lord

Liverpool holds much by Lord Melville--well in point of judgment--and by

the Duke of Wellington--still better, but then the Duke is a soldier--a

bad education for a statesman in a free country. The Chancellor is also

consulted by the Premier on all law affairs. Canning and Huskisson are

at the head of the other party, who may be said to have taken the

Cabinet by storm, through sheer dint of talent. I should like to see

how these ingredients are working; but by the grace of God, I will take

care of putting my finger into the cleft stick.

Locker has promised to get my young cousin Walter Scott on some

quarter-deck or other.

Received from Mr. Cadell the second instalment advance of cash on

_Canongate_. It is in English bills and money, in case of my going to

town.

_October_ 9.--A gracious letter from Messrs. Abud and Son, bill-brokers,

etc.; assure Mr. Gibson that they will institute no legal proceedings

against me for four or five weeks. And so I am permitted to spend my

money and my leisure to improve the means of paying them their debts,

for that is the only use of my present journey. They are Jews: I suppose

the devil baits for Jews with a pork griskin. Were I not to exert

myself, I wonder where their money is to come from.

A letter from Gillies menacing the world with a foreign miscellany. The

plan is a good one, but "he canna haud it," as John Moodie[354] says. He

will think all is done when he has got a set of names, and he will find

the difficulty consists not in that, but in getting articles. I wrote on

the prose works.

Lord and Lady Minto dined and spent the night at Abbotsford.

_October_ 10.--Well, I must prepare for going to London, and perhaps to

Paris. The morning frittered away. I slept till eight o'clock, then our

guests till twelve; then walked out to direct some alterations on the

quarry, which I think may at little expense be rendered a pretty recess.

Wordsworth swears by an old quarry, and is in some degree a supreme

authority on such points. Rain came on; returned completely wet. I had

next the displeasure to find that I had lost the conclusion of vol. v.

of Napoleon, seven or eight pages at least, which I shall have to write

over again, unless I can find it. Well, as Othello says, "that's not

much." My cousin James Scott came to dinner.

I have great unwillingness to set out on this journey; I almost think it

ominous; but

"They that look to freits, my master dear,

Their freits will follow them."[355]

I will stick to my purpose. Answered a letter from Gillies about

establishing a foreign journal; a good plan, but I fear in sorry hands.

Of those he names as his assistants they who can be useful will do

little, and the labours of those who are willing to work will rather

hold the publication down. I fear it will not do.

I am downhearted about leaving all my things, after I was quietly

settled; it is a kind of disrooting that recalls a thousand painful

ideas of former happier journeys. And to be at the mercy of these

fellows! God help--but rather God bless--man must help himself.

_October_ 11.--We are ingenious self-tormentors. This journey annoys me

more than anything of the kind in my life. My wife's figure seems to

stand before me, and her voice is in my ears--"Scott, do not go." It

half frightens me. Strong throbbing at my heart, and a disposition to be

very sick. It is just the effect of so many feelings which had been

lulled asleep by the uniformity of my life, but which awaken on any new

subject of agitation. Poor, poor Charlotte!! I cannot daub it further. I

get incapable of arranging my papers too. I will go out for

half-an-hour. God relieve me!

I quelled this _hysterica passio_ by pushing a walk towards Kaeside and

back again, but when I returned I still felt uncomfortable, and all the

papers I wanted were out of the way, and all those I did not want seemed

to place themselves under my fingers; my cash, according to the nature

of riches in general, made to itself wings and fled, I verily believe

from one hiding-place to another. To appease this insurrection of the

papers, I gave up putting my things in order till to-morrow morning.

Dined at Kippielaw with a party of neighbours. They had cigars for me,

very politely. But I must break folks off this. I would [not] willingly

be like old Dr. Parr, or any such quiz, who has his tastes and whims,

forsooth, that must be gratified. So no cigars on the journey.

_October_ 12.[356]--Reduced my rebellious papers to order. Set out after

breakfast, and reached Carlisle at eight o'clock at night.

_Rokeby Park, October_ 13.--We were off before seven, and visiting

Appleby Castle by the way (a most interesting and curious place), we got

to Morritt's[357] about half-past four, where we had as warm a welcome

as one of the warmest hearts in the world could give an old friend. I

saw his nephew's wife for the first time, a very pleasing young person.

It was great pleasure to me to see Morritt happy in the midst of his

family circle, undisturbed, as heretofore, by the sickness of any dear

to him.

On recalling my own recollections during my journey I may note that I

found great pleasure in my companion's conversation, as well as in her

mode of managing all her little concerns on the road. I am apt to judge

of character by good-humour and alacrity in these petty concerns. I

think the inconveniences of a journey seem greater to me than formerly;

while, on the other hand, the pleasures it affords are rather less. The

ascent of Stainmore seemed duller and longer than usual, and Bowes,

which used to strike me as a distinguished feature, seemed an ill-formed

mass of rubbish, a great deal lower than I had supposed; yet I have seen

it twenty times at least. On the other hand, what I lose in my own

personal feelings I gain in those of my companion, who shows an

intelligent curiosity and interest in what she sees. I enjoy therefore,

reflectively, _veluti in speculo_, the sort of pleasure to which I am

now less accessible.

_October_ 14.--Strolled about in the morning with Morritt, and saw his

new walk up the Tees, which he is just concocting. Got a pamphlet he has

written on the Catholic Question. In 1806 he had other views on that

subject, but "live and learn" as they say. One of his squibs against Fox

and Grenville's Administration concludes--

"Though they sleep with the devil, yet theirs is the hope,

On the scum of old England, to rise with the Pope."

Set off at two, and reached Wetherby to supper and bed.

It was the Corporation of Leeds that by a subscription of £80,000

brought in the anti-Catholic candidate. I remember their subscribing a

similar sum to bring in Morritt, if he would have stood.

Saw in Morritt's possession an original miniature of Milton by Cooper--a

valuable thing indeed. The pedigree seemed authentic. It was painted

for his favourite daughter--had come into possession of some of the

Davenants--was then in the Devonshire collection from which it was

stolen. Afterwards purchased by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and at his sale by

Morritt or his father.[358] The countenance handsome and dignified, with

a strong expression of genius, probably the only portrait of Milton

taken from the life excepting the drawing from which Faithorne's head is

done.

[_Grantham_,] _October_ 15.--Old England is no changeling. It is long

since I travelled this road, having come up to town chiefly by sea of

late years, but things seem much the same. One race of red-nosed

innkeepers are gone, and their widows, eldest sons, or head-waiters

exercise hospitality in their room with the same bustle and importance.

Other things seem, externally at least, much the same. The land,

however, is much better ploughed; straight ridges everywhere adopted in

place of the old circumflex of twenty years ago. Three horses, however,

or even four, are often seen in a plough yoked one before the other. Ill

habits do not go out at once. We slept at Grantham, where we met with

Captain William Lockhart and his lady, bound for London like ourselves.

[_Biggleswade_,] _October_ 16.--Visited Burleigh this morning; the first

time I ever saw that grand place, where there are so many objects of

interest and curiosity. The house is magnificent, in the style of James

I.'s reign, and consequently in mixed Gothic. Of paintings I know

nothing; so shall attempt to say nothing. But whether to connoisseurs,

or to an ignorant admirer like myself, the Salvator Mundi, by Carlo

Dolci, must seem worth a King's ransom. Lady Exeter, who was at home,

had the goodness or curiosity to wish to see us. She is a beauty after

my own heart; a great deal of liveliness in the face; an absence alike

of form and of affected ease, and really courteous after a genuine and

ladylike fashion.

We reached Biggleswade to-night at six, and paused here to wait for the

Lockharts. Spent the evening together.

[_Pall Mall_,] _October_ 17.--Here am I in this capital once more, after

an April-weather meeting with my daughter and Lockhart. Too much grief

in our first meeting to be joyful; too much pleasure to be

distressing--a giddy sensation between the painful and the pleasurable.

I will call another subject.

Read over _Sir John Chiverton_[359] and _Brambletye House_[360]--novels

in what I may surely claim as the style

"Which I was born to introduce--

Refined it first, and show'd its use."

They are both clever books; one in imitation of the days of chivalry;

the other (by Horace Smith, one of the authors of the _Rejected

Addresses_) dated in the time of the Civil Wars, and introducing

historical characters. I read both with great interest during the

journey.

I am something like Captain Bobadil[361] who trained up a hundred

gentlemen to fight very nearly, if not altogether, as well as myself.

And so far I am convinced of this, that I believe were I to publish the

_Canongate Chronicles_ without my name (_nom de guerre_, I mean) the

event would be a corollary to the fable of the peasant who made the real

pig squeak against the imitator, while the sapient audience hissed the

poor grunter as if inferior to the biped in his own language. The

peasant could, indeed, confute the long-eared multitude by showing

piggy; but were I to fail as a knight with a white and maiden shield,

and then vindicate my claim to attention by putting "By the Author of

_Waverley_" in the title, my good friend _Publicum_ would defend itself

by stating I had tilted so ill, that my course had not the least

resemblance to my former doings, when indisputably I bore away the

garland. Therefore I am as firmly and resolutely determined that I will

tilt under my own cognisance. The hazard, indeed, remains of being

beaten. But there is a prejudice (not an undue one neither) in favour of

the original patentee; and Joe Manton's name has borne out many a sorry

gun-barrel. More of this to-morrow.

Expense of journey, £4100

Anne, pocket-money, 500

Servants on journey, 200

Cash in purse (silver not reckoned), 200

____

£5000

____

This is like to be an expensive journey; but if I can sell an early copy

of the work to a French translator, it should bring me home.

Thank God, little Johnnie Hoo, as he calls himself, is looking well,

though the poor dear child is kept always in a prostrate posture.

_October_ 18.--I take up again my remarks on imitators. I am sure I mean

the gentlemen no wrong by calling them so, and heartily wish they had

followed a better model; but it serves to show me _veluti in speculo_ my

own errors, or, if you will, those of the _style_. One advantage, I

think, I still have over all of them. They may do their fooling with

better grace; but I, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, do it more

natural.[362] They have to read old books and consult antiquarian

collections to get their knowledge; I write because I have long since

read such works, and possess, thanks to a strong memory, the information

which they have to seek for. This leads to a dragging-in historical

details by head and shoulders, so that the interest of the main piece is

lost in minute descriptions of events which do not affect its progress.

Perhaps I have sinned in this way myself; indeed, I am but too conscious

of having considered the plot only as what Bayes[363] calls the means of

bringing in fine things; so that in respect to the descriptions, it

resembled the string of the showman's box, which he pulls to show in

succession Kings, Queens, the Battle of Waterloo, Bonaparte at Saint

Helena, Newmarket Races, and White-headed Bob floored by Jemmy from

town. All this I may have done, but I have repented of it; and in my

better efforts, while I conducted my story through the agency of

historical personages, and by connecting it with historical incidents, I

have endeavoured to weave them pretty closely together, and in future I

will study this more. Must not let the background eclipse the principal

figures--the frame overpower the picture.

Another thing in my favour is, that my contemporaries steal too openly.

Mr. Smith has inserted in _Brambletye House_ whole pages from Defoe's

_Fire and Plague of London_.

"Steal! foh! a fico for the phrase--

Convey, the wise it call!"[364]

When I _convey_ an incident or so, I am at as much pains to avoid

detection as if the offence could be indicted in literal fact at the Old

Bailey.

But leaving this, hard pressed as I am by these imitators, who must put

the thing out of fashion at last, I consider, like a fox at his last

shifts, whether there be a way to dodge them, some new device to throw

them off, and have a mile or two of free ground, while I have legs and

wind left to use it. There is one way to give novelty: to depend for

success on the interest of a well-contrived story. But woe's me! that

requires thought, consideration--the writing out a regular plan or

plot--above all the adhering to one--which I never can do, for the ideas

rise as I write, and bear such a disproportioned extent to that which

each occupied at the first concoction, that (cocksnowns!) I shall never

be able to take the trouble; and yet to make the world stare, and gain a

new march ahead of them all!!! Well, something we still will do.

"Liberty's in every blow;

Let us do or die!"

Poor Rob Burns! to tack thy fine strains of sublime patriotism! Better

take Tristram Shandy's vein. Hand me my cap and bells there. So now, I

am equipped. I open my raree-show with

Ma'am, will you walk in, and fal de ral diddle?

And, sir, will you stalk in, and fal de ral diddle?

And, miss, will you pop in, and fal de ral diddle?

And, master, pray hop in, and fal de ral diddle?

Query--How long is it since I heard that strain of dulcet mood, and

where or how came I to pick it up? It is not mine, "though by your

smiling you seem to say so."[365] Here is a proper morning's work! But I

am childish with seeing them all well and happy here; and as I can

neither whistle nor sing, I must let the giddy humour run to waste on

paper.

Sallied forth in the morning; bought a hat. Met S[ir] W[illiam]

K[nighton],[366] from whose discourse I guess that _Malachi_ has done me

no prejudice in a certain quarter; with more indications of the times,

which I need not set down. Sallied again after breakfast, and visited

the Piccadilly ladies.[367] Saw Rogers and Richard Sharp, also good Dr.

and Mrs. Hughes, also the Duchess of Buckingham, and Lady Charlotte

Bury, with a most beautiful little girl. [Owen] Rees breakfasted, and

agreed I should have what the Frenchman has offered for the advantage of

translating _Napoleon_, which, being a hundred guineas, will help my

expenses to town and down again.

_October_ 19.--I rose at my usual time, but could not write; so read

Southey's _History of the Peninsular War_. It is very good

indeed,--honest English principle in every line; but there are many

prejudices, and there is a tendency to augment a work already too long

by saying all that can be said of the history of ancient times

appertaining to every place mentioned. What care we whether Saragossa be

derived from Caesarea Augusta? Could he have proved it to be Numantium,

there would have been a concatenation accordingly.[368]

Breakfasted at Rogers' with Sir Thomas Lawrence; Luttrell, the great

London wit;[369] Richard Sharp, etc. Sam made us merry with an account

of some part of Rose's _Ariosto_; proposed that the Italian should be

printed on the other side for the sake of assisting the indolent reader

to understand the English; and complained of his using more than once

the phrase of a lady having "voided her saddle," which would certainly

sound extraordinary at Apothecaries' Hall. Well, well, Rose carries a

dirk too.[370] The morning was too dark for Westminster Abbey, which we

had projected.

I went to the Foreign Office, and am put by Mr. Wilmot Horton into the

hands of a confidential clerk, Mr. Smith, who promises access to

everything. Then saw Croker, who gave me a bundle of documents. Sir

George Cockburn promises his despatches and journal. In short, I have

ample prospect of materials.

Dined with Mrs. Coutts. Tragi-comic distress of my good friend on the

marriage of her presumptive heir with a daughter of Lucien Bonaparte.

_October_ 20.--Commanded down to pass a day at Windsor. This is very

kind of His Majesty.

At breakfast, Crofton Croker, author of the _Irish Fairy Tales_--little

as a dwarf, keen-eyed as a hawk, and of very prepossessing manners.

Something like Tom Moore. There were also Terry, Allan Cunningham,

Newton, and others. Now I must go to work.

Went down to Windsor, or rather to the Lodge in the Forest, which,

though ridiculed by connoisseurs, seems to be no bad specimen of a royal

retirement, and is delightfully situated. A kind of cottage ornée--too

large perhaps for the style--but yet so managed that in the walks you

only see parts of it at once, and these well composed and grouping with

immense trees. His Majesty received me with the same mixture of kindness

and courtesy which has always distinguished his conduct towards me.

There was no company beside the royal retinue--Lady C[onyngham], her

daughter, and two or three other ladies. After we left table, there was

excellent music by the Royal Band, who lay ambushed in a green-house

adjoining the apartment. The King made me sit beside him and talk a

great deal--_too much_, perhaps--for he has the art of raising one's

spirits, and making you forget the _retenue_ which is prudent

everywhere, especially at court. But he converses himself with so much

ease and elegance, that you lose thoughts of the prince in admiring the

well-bred and accomplished gentleman. He is, in many respects, the model

of a British monarch--has little inclination to try experiments on

government otherwise than through his ministers--sincerely, I believe,

desires the good of his subjects, is kind toward the distressed, and

moves and speaks "every inch a king."[371] I am sure such a man is

fitter for us than one who would long to head armies, or be perpetually

intermeddling with _la grande politique_. A sort of reserve, which

creeps on him daily, and prevents his going to places of public resort,

is a disadvantage, and prevents his being so generally popular as is

earnestly to be desired. This, I think, was much increased by the

behaviour of the rabble in the brutal insanity of the Queen's trial,

when John Bull, meaning the best in the world, made such a beastly

figure.

_October_ 21.--Walked in the morning with Sir William Knighton, and had

much confidential chat, not fit to be here set down, in case of

accidents. He undertook most kindly to recommend Charles, when he has

taken his degree, to be attached to some of the diplomatic missions,

which I think is best for the lad after all. After breakfast went to

Windsor Castle, met by appointment my daughters and Lockhart, and

examined the improvements going on there under Mr. Wyattville, who

appears to possess a great deal of taste and feeling for Gothic

architecture. The old apartments, splendid enough in extent and

proportion, are paltry in finishing. Instead of being lined with heart

of oak, the palace of the British King is hung with paper, painted

wainscot colour. There are some fine paintings and some droll ones;

among the last are those of divers princes of the House of

Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of which Queen Charlotte was descended. They are

ill-coloured, orang-outang-looking figures, with black eyes and

hook-noses, in old-fashioned uniforms.

We returned to a hasty dinner [in Pall Mall], and then hurried away to

see honest Dan Terry's house, called the Adelphi Theatre, where we saw

the _Pilot_, from the American novel of that name. It is extremely

popular, the dramatist having seized on the whole story, and turned the

odious and ridiculous parts, assigned by the original author to the

British, against the Yankees themselves. There is a quiet effrontery in

this that is of a rare and peculiar character. The Americans were so

much displeased, that they attempted a row--which rendered the piece

doubly attractive to the seamen at Wapping, who came up and crowded the

house night after night, to support the honour of the British flag.

After all, one must deprecate whatever keeps up ill-will betwixt America

and the mother country; and we in particular should avoid awakening

painful recollections. Our high situation enables us to contemn petty

insults and to make advances towards cordiality. I was, however, glad to

see honest Dan's theatre as full seemingly as it could hold. The heat

was dreadful, and Anne was so very unwell that she was obliged to be

carried into Terry's house,--a curious dwelling, no larger than a

squirrel's cage, which he has contrived to squeeze out of the vacant

spaces of the theatre, and which is accessible by a most complicated

combination of staircases and small passages. Here we had rare good

porter and oysters after the play, and found Anne much better. She had

attempted too much; indeed I myself was much fatigued.

_October_ 22.--This morning Drs. Gooch, Shaw, and Yates breakfasted, and

had a consultation about wee Johnnie. They give us great hopes that his

health will be established, but the seaside or the country seem

indispensable. Mr. Wilmot Horton,[372] Under Secretary of State, also

breakfasted. He is full of some new plan of relieving the poor's-rates

by encouraging emigration. But John Bull will think this savours of

Botany Bay. The attempt to look the poor's-rates in the face is

certainly meritorious.

Laboured in writing and marking extracts to be copied from breakfast to

dinner, with the exception of an hour spent in telling Johnnie the

history of his namesake, Gilpin.

Mr. William and Mrs. Lockhart dined with us. Tom Moore[373] and Sir

Thomas Lawrence came in the evening, which made a pleasant _soirée_.

Smoke my French--Egad, it is time to air some of my vocabulary. It is, I

find, cursedly musty.

_October_ 23.--Sam Rogers and Moore breakfasted here, and we were very

merry fellows. Moore seemed disposed to go to France with us. I visited

the Admiralty, and got Sir George Cockburn's journal, which is

valuable.[374] Also visited Lady Elizabeth and Sir Charles Stewart. My

heart warmed to the former, on account of the old Balcarres connection.

Sir Charles and she were very kind and communicative. I foresee I will

be embarrassed with more communications than I can well use or trust to,

coloured as they must be by the passions of those who make them. Thus I

have a statement from the Duchess d'Escars, to which the Bonapartists

would, I dare say, give no credit. If Talleyrand, for example, could be

communicative, he must have ten thousand reasons for perverting the

truth, and yet a person receiving a direct communication from him would

be almost barred from disputing it.

"Sing tantararara, rogues all."

We dined at the Residentiary-house with good Dr. Hughes,[375] Allan

Cunningham, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and young Mr. Hughes. Thomas

Pringle[376] is returned from the Cape, and called in my absence. He

might have done well there, could he have scoured his brain of politics,

but he must needs publish a Whig journal at the Cape of Good Hope! He is

a worthy creature, but conceited withal--_hinc illæ lachrymæ._ He

brought me some antlers and a skin, in addition to others he had sent to

Abbotsford four years since. Crofton Croker made me a present of a small

box of curious Irish antiquities containing a gold fibula, etc. etc.

_October_ 24--Laboured in the morning. At breakfast Dr. Holland[377] and

Cohen, whom they now call Palgrave,[378] a mutation of names which

confused my recollections. Item, Moore. I worked at the Colonial Office

pretty hard. Dined with Mr. Wilmot Horton and his beautiful wife, the

original of the "_She walks in Beauty_," etc., of poor Byron.

The conversation is seldom excellent among official people. So many

topics are what Otaheitians call _taboo_. We hunted down a pun or two,

which were turned out, like the stag at the Epping Hunt, for the pursuit

of all and sundry. Came home early, and was in bed by eleven.

_October_ 25.--Good Mr. Wilson[379] and his wife at breakfast; also Sir

Thomas Lawrence. Locker[380] came in afterwards, and made a proposal to

me to give up his intended Life of George III. in my favour on cause

shown. I declined the proposal, not being of opinion that _my_ genius

lies that way, and not relishing hunting in couples. Afterwards went to

the Colonial Office, and had Robert Hay's assistance in my inquiries;

then to the French Ambassador for my passports. Picked up Sotheby, who

endeavoured to saddle me for a review of his polyglot Virgil. I fear I

shall scarce convince him that I know nothing of the Latin lingo. Sir

R.H. Inglis, Richard Sharp, and other friends called. We dined at Miss

Dumergue's, and spent a part of our soirée at Lydia White's. To-morrow,

"For France, for France, for it is more than need."[381]

[_Calais_,] _October_ 26.--- Up at five, and in the packet by six. A

fine passage--save at the conclusion, while we lay on and off the

harbour of Calais. But the tossing made no impression on my companion or

me; we ate and drank like dragons the whole way, and were able to manage

a good supper and best part of a bottle of Chablis, at the classic

Dessein's, who received us with much courtesy.

_October_ 27.--Custom House, etc., detained us till near ten o'clock,

so we had time to walk on the Boulevards, and to see the fortifications,

which must be very strong, all the country round being flat and marshy.

Lost, as all know, by the bloody papist bitch (one must be vernacular

when on French ground) Queen Mary, of red-hot memory. I would rather she

had burned a score more of bishops. If she had kept it, her sister Bess

would sooner have parted with her virginity. Charles I. had no

temptation to part with it--it might, indeed, have been shuffled out of

our hands during the Civil wars, but Noll would have as soon let

monsieur draw one of his grinders; then Charles II. would hardly have

dared to sell such an old possession, as he did Dunkirk; and after that

the French had little chance till the Revolution. Even then, I think, we

could have held a place that could be supplied from our own element, the

sea. _Cui bono?_ None, I think, but to plague the rogues.--We dined at

Cormont, and being stopped by Mr. Canning having taken up all the

post-horses, could only reach Montreuil that night. I should have liked

to have seen some more of this place, which is fortified; and as it

stands on an elevated and rocky site must present some fine points. But

as we came in late and left early, I can only bear witness to good

treatment, good supper, good _vin de Barsac_, and excellent beds.

_October_ 28.--Breakfasted at Abbeville, and saw a very handsome Gothic

church, and reached Grandvilliers at night. The house is but

second-rate, though lauded by various English travellers for the

moderation of its charges, as was recorded in a book presented to us by

the landlady. There is no great patriotism in publishing that a

traveller thinks the bills moderate; it serves usually as an intimation

to mine host or hostess that John Bull will bear a little more

squeezing. I gave my attestation too, however, for the charges of the

good lady resembled those elsewhere; and her anxiety to please was

extreme. Folks must be harder-hearted than I am to resist the

_empressement_, which may, indeed, be venal, yet has in its expression

a touch of cordiality.

[_Paris_,] _October_ 29.--Breakfasted at Beauvais, and saw its

magnificent cathedral--unfinished it has been left, and unfinished it

will remain, of course,--the fashion of cathedrals being passed away.

But even what exists is inimitable, the choir particularly, and the

grand front. Beauvais is called the _Pucelle_, yet, so far as I can see,

she wears no stays--I mean, has no fortifications. On we run, however.

_Vogue la galère; et voilà nous à Paris_, Hotel de Windsor [_Rue

Rivoli_], where we are well lodged. France, so far as I can see, which

is very little, has not undergone many changes. The image of war has,

indeed, passed away, and we no longer see troops crossing the country in

every direction; villages either ruined or hastily fortified;

inhabitants sheltered in the woods and caves to escape the rapacity of

the soldiers--all this has passed away. The inns are much amended. There

is no occasion for that rascally practice of making a bargain--or

_combien_-ing your landlady, before you unharness your horses, which

formerly was a matter of necessity. The general taste of the English

seems to regulate the travelling--naturally enough, as the hotels, of

which there are two or three in each town, chiefly subsist by them. We

did not see one French equipage on the road; the natives seem to travel

entirely in the Diligence, and doubtless _à bon marché_; the road was

thronged with English.

But in her great features France is the same as ever. An oppressive air

of solitude seems to hover over these rich and extended plains, while we

are sensible that, whatever is the motive of the desolation, it cannot

be sterility. The towns are small, and have a poor appearance, and more

frequently exhibit signs of decayed splendour than of thriving and

increasing prosperity. The château, the abode of the gentleman, and the

villa, the retreat of the thriving _négociant_, are rarely seen till you

come to Beaumont. At this place, which well deserves its name of the

fair mount, the prospect improves greatly, and country-seats are seen in

abundance; also woods, sometimes deep and extensive, at other times

scattered in groves and single trees. Amidst these the oak seldom or

never is found; England, lady of the ocean, seems to claim it

exclusively as her own. Neither are there any quantity of firs. Poplars

in abundance give a formal air to the landscape. The forests chiefly

consist of beeches, with some birches, and the roads are bordered by

elms cruelly cropped, pollarded, and switched. The demand for firewood

occasions these mutilations. If I could waft by a wish the thinnings of

Abbotsford here, it would make a little fortune of itself. But then to

switch and mutilate my trees!--not for a thousand francs. Ay, but sour

grapes, quoth the fox.

_October_ 30.--Finding ourselves snugly settled in our Hotel, we

determined to remain here at fifteen francs per day. We are in the midst

of what can be seen, and we are very comfortably fed and lodged.

This morning wet and surly. Sallied, however, by the assistance of a

hired coach, and left cards for Count Pozzo di Borgo, Lord Granville,

our ambassador, and M. Gallois, author of the _History of Venice_.[382]

Found no one at home, not even the old pirate Galignani,[383] at whose

den I ventured to call. Showed my companion the Louvre (which was

closed, unluckily), the front of the palace with its courts, and all

that splendid quarter which the fame of Paris rests upon in security. We

can never do the like in Britain. Royal magnificence can only be

displayed by despotic power. In England, were the most splendid street

or public building to be erected, the matter must be discussed in

Parliament, or perhaps some sturdy cobbler holds out, and refuses to

part with his stall, and the whole plan is disconcerted. Long may such

impediments exist! But then we should conform to circumstances, and

assume in our public works a certain sober simplicity of character,

which should point out that they were dictated by utility rather than

show. The affectation of an expensive style only places us at a

disadvantageous contrast with other nations, and our substitute of brick

and plaster for freestone resembles the mean ambition which displays

Bristol stones in default of diamonds.

We went to theatre in the evening--Comédie Française the place,

_Rosemunde_ the piece. It is the composition of a young man with a

promising name--Émile de Bonnechose; the story that of Fair Rosamond.

There were some good situations, and the actors in the French taste

seemed to me admirable, particularly Mademoiselle Bourgoin. It would be

absurd to attempt to criticise what I only half understood; but the

piece was well received, and produced a very strong effect. Two or three

ladies were carried out in hysterics; one next to our box was

frightfully ill. A Monsieur _à belles moustaches_--the husband, I trust,

though it is likely they were _en partie fine_--was extremely and

affectionately assiduous. She was well worthy of the trouble, being very

pretty indeed; the face beautiful, even amidst the involuntary

convulsions. The afterpiece was _Femme Juge et Partie_, with which I was

less amused than I had expected, because I found I understood the

language less than I did ten or eleven years since. Well, well, I am

past the age of mending.

Some of our friends in London had pretended that at Paris I might stand

some chance of being encountered by the same sort of tumultuary

reception which I met in Ireland; but for this I see no ground. It is a

point on which I am totally indifferent. As a literary man I cannot

affect to despise public applause; as a private gentleman I have always

been embarrassed and displeased with popular clamours, even when in my

favour. I know very well the breath of which such shouts are composed,

and am sensible those who applaud me to-day would be as ready to toss me

to-morrow; and I would not have them think that I put such a value on

their favour as would make me for an instant fear their displeasure. Now

all this disclamation is sincere, and yet it sounds affected. It puts me

in mind of an old woman who, when Carlisle was taken by the Highlanders

in 1745, chose to be particularly apprehensive of personal violence, and

shut herself up in a closet, in order that she might escape ravishment.

But no one came to disturb her solitude, and she began to be sensible

that poor Donald was looking out for victuals, or seeking for some small

plunder, without bestowing a thought on the fair sex; by and by she

popped her head out of her place of refuge with the petty question,

"Good folks, can you tell when the ravishing is going to begin?" I am

sure I shall neither hide myself to avoid applause, which probably no

one will think of conferring, nor have the meanness to do anything which

can indicate any desire of ravishment. I have seen, when the late Lord

Erskine entered the Edinburgh theatre, papers distributed in the boxes

to mendicate a round of applause--the natural reward of a poor player.

_October_ 31.--At breakfast visited by M. Gallois, an elderly Frenchman

(always the most agreeable class), full of information, courteous and

communicative. He had seen nearly, and remarked deeply, and spoke

frankly, though with due caution. He went with us to the Museum, where I

think the Hall of Sculpture continues to be a fine thing; that of

Pictures but tolerable, when we reflect upon 1815. A number of great

French daubs (comparatively), by David and Gerard, cover the walls once

occupied by the Italian _chefs-d'oeuvre. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum_. We

then visited Notre Dame and the Palace of Justice. The latter is

accounted the oldest building in Paris, being the work of St. Louis. It

is, however, in the interior, adapted to the taste of Louis XIV. We

drove over the Pont Neuf, and visited the fine quays, which was all we

could make out to-day, as I was afraid to fatigue Anne. When we returned

home I found Count Pozzo di Borgo waiting for me, a personable man,

inclined to be rather corpulent--handsome features, with all the

Corsican fire in his eye. He was quite kind and communicative. Lord

Granville had also called, and sent Mr. Jones [his secretary] to invite

us to dinner to-morrow. In the evening at the Odéon, where we saw

_Ivanhoe_. It was superbly got up, the Norman soldiers wearing pointed

helmets and what resembled much hauberks of mail, which looked very

well. The number of the attendants, and the skill with which they were

moved and grouped on the stage, were well worthy of notice. It was an

opera, and of course the story greatly mangled, and the dialogue in a

great part nonsense. Yet it was strange to hear anything like the words

which I (then in an agony of pain with spasms in my stomach) dictated to

William Laidlaw at Abbotsford, now recited in a foreign tongue, and for

the amusement of a strange people. I little thought to have survived the

completing of this novel.[384]

FOOTNOTES:

[350] Eldest daughter of the illustrious Admiral Lord Duncan, wife of

Sir Hew Hamilton Dalrymple. She died in 1852.

[351] This implacable enemy of Napoleon,--a Corsican, died in his

seventy-fourth year in 1842.

[352] E.H. Locker, Esq., then Secretary, afterwards one of the

Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital--an old and dear friend of

Scott's.--See Oct. 25.

[353] As an illustration of Constable's accuracy in gauging the value of

literary property, it may be stated that in his formal declaration,

after sequestration, he said:--"I was so sanguine as to the success of

the _Memoirs of Napoleon_ that I did not hesitate to express it as my

opinion that I had much confidence in it producing him at least £10,000,

and this I observed, as my expectation, to Sir W. Scott." This opinion

was expressed not only before the sale of the work, but before it was

all written.--_A. Constable and his Correspondents_, vol. iii. p. 313.

[354] Another of the Abbotsford labourers.

[355] See Ballad of _Edom of Gordon_.

[356] "On the 12th of October, Sir Walter left Abbotsford for London,

where he had been promised access to the papers in the Government

offices; and thence he proceeded to Paris, in the hope of gathering from

various eminent persons authentic anecdotes concerning Napoleon. His

Diary shows that he was successful in obtaining many valuable materials

for the completion of his historical work; and reflects, with sufficient

distinctness, the very brilliant reception he on this occasion

experienced both in London and Paris. The range of his society is

strikingly (and unconsciously) exemplified in the record of one day,

when we find him breakfasting at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Park, and

supping on oysters and porter in "honest Dan Terry's house, like a

squirrel's cage," above the Adelphi Theatre in the Strand. There can be

no doubt that this expedition was in many ways serviceable in his _Life

of Napoleon_; and I think as little that it was chiefly so by renewing

his spirits. The deep and respectful sympathy with which his

misfortunes, and gallant behaviour under them, had been regarded by all

classes of men at home and abroad, was brought home to his perception in

a way not to be mistaken. He was cheered and gratified, and returned to

Scotland with renewed hope and courage for the prosecution of his

marvellous course of industry."--_Life_, vol. ix. pp. 2, 3.

[357] John B. Saurey Morritt of Rokeby, a friend of twenty years'

standing, and "one of the most accomplished men that ever shared Scott's

confidence."

He had published, before making Scott's acquaintance, a _Vindication of

Homer_, in 1798, a treatise on _The Topography of Troy_, 1800, and

translations and imitations of the minor Greek Poets in 1802.

Mr. Morritt survived his friend till February 12th, 1843, when he died

at Rokeby Park, Yorkshire, in his seventy-second year.--See _Life_

throughout.

[358] _MS. note on margin of Journal_ by Mr. Morritt: "No--it was left

by Reynolds to Mason, by Mason to Burgh, and given to me by Mr. Burgh's

widow."

[359] _Chiverton_ was the first publication (anonymous) of Mr. W.

Harrison Ainsworth, the author of _Rookwood_ and other popular

romances.--J.G.L.

[360] It is interesting to know that Scott would not read this book

until _Woodstock_ was fairly off his hands.

See _ante_, p. 167, and the introduction to the original edition written

in March 1826, in which the author says:--"Some accidental collision

there must be, when works of a similar character are finished on the

same general system of historical manners, and the same historical

personages are introduced. Of course, if such have occurred, I shall be

probably the sufferer. But my intentions have been at least innocent,

since I look on it as one of the advantages attending the conclusion of

_Woodstock_, that the finishing of my own task will permit me to have

the pleasure of reading BRAMBLETYE-HOUSE, from which I have hitherto

conscientiously abstained."--_Novels_, vol. xxxix. pp. lxxv-vi.

[361] Ben Jonson, _Every Man in his Humour_.

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

[363] _Rehearsal_, Act III. Sc. 1.

[364] _Merry Wives_, Act I. Sc. 3.

[365] _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

[366] Sir Walter had made his acquaintance in August 1822, and ever

afterwards they corresponded with each other--sometimes very

confidentially.--J.G.L.

[367] The Dumergues, at 15 Piccadilly West--early friends of Lady

Scott's.--See _Life_., vol. ii. p. 120.

[368] It is amusing to compare this criticism with Sir Walter's own

anxiety to identify his daughter-in-law's place, _Lochore_, with the

_Urbs Orrea_ of the Roman writers. See _Life_, vol. vii. p. 352.--J.G.L.

[369] This brilliant conversationalist was the author of several airy

and graceful productions in verse, which were published anonymously,

such as _Lines written at Ampthill Park_, in 1818; _Advice to Julia, a

letter in Rhyme_, in which he sketched high life in London, in 1820. He

also published _Crockford House_: a rhapsody, in 1827. Moore in his

_Diary_ has embalmed numerous examples of his satiric wit. Henry

Luttrell died in 1851.

[370] The _Orlando Furioso_, by Mr. Stewart Rose, was published in 8

vols. 8vo, London 1823-1831.

[371] _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 6.--J.G.L.

[372] Afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, Governor of

Ceylon.

[373] Moore, on hearing of Scott's arrival, hastened to London from

Sloperton, and had several pleasant meetings, particulars of which are

given in his _Diary_ (vol. v. pp. 121 to 126). He would, as Scott says

on the 23d, have gone to Paris with them--"seemed disposed to go"; but

between that date and 25th fancied that he saw something in Scott's

manner that made him hesitate, and then finally give up the idea. He

adds that Scott's friends had thrown out hints as to the impropriety of

such a political reprobate forming one of the party. This suspicion on

Moore's part shows how he had misunderstood Scott's real character. If

Scott thought it right to ask the Bard of Ireland to be his companion,

no hints from Mr. Wilmot Horton, or any members of the Court party,

would have influenced him, even though they had urged that "this

political reprobate" was author of _The Fudge Family in Paris_ and the

_Twopenny Post-Bag._

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

published.

[375] Dr. Hughes, who died Jan. 6, 1833, aged seventy-seven, was one of

the Canons-residentiary of St. Paul's, London. He and Mrs. Hughes were

old friends of Sir Walter, who had been godfather to one of their

grandchildren.--See _Life_, vol. vii. pp. 259-260. Their son was John

Hughes, Esq., of Oriel College, whose "Itinerary of the Rhone" is

mentioned with praise in the introduction to _Quentin Durward_.--See

letter to Charles Scott, in _Life_, vol. vii. p. 275.

[376] Mr. Pringle was a Roxburghshire farmer's son who in youth

attracted Sir Walter's notice by his poem called _The Autumnal

Excursion; or, Sketches in Teviotdale_. He was for a short time Editor

of _Blackwood's Magazine_, but the publisher and he had different

politics, quarrelled, and parted. Sir Walter then gave Pringle strong

recommendations to the late Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of the Cape

of Good Hope in which colony he settled, and for some years throve under

the Governor's protection; but the newspaper alluded to in the text

ruined his prospects at the Cape; he returned to England, became

Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society, published a charming little

volume entitled _African Sketches_, and died in December 1834. He was a

man of amiable feelings and elegant genius.

[377] An esteemed friend of Sir Walter's, who attended on him during his

illness in October 1831, and in June 1832.

[378] Afterwards Sir Francis Palgrave, Deputy-Keeper of the public

records, and author of the _History of Normandy and England_, 4 vols.

8vo, 1851-1864, and other works.

[379] William Wilson of Wandsworth Common, formerly of Wilsontown, in

Lanarkshire.--J.G.L.

[380] E.H. Locker, then Secretary of Greenwich Hospital.--See _ante_,

Oct. 7.

[381] _King John_, Act I. Sc. 1.

[382] There were two well-known Frenchmen of this name at the time of

Scott's visit to Paris: (1) Jean-Antoine-Gauvain Gallois, who was born

about 1755 and died in 1828; (2) Charles-André-Gustave-Léonard Gallois,

born 1789, died 1851. It was the latter of these who translated from the

Italian of Colletta _Cinq jours de l'histoire de Naples_, 8vo, Paris,

1820. But at this date he was only thirty-seven, and it can scarcely be

of him that Scott writes (p. 288) as an "elderly" man. The probability

is that it was the elder Gallois whom Scott saw, and that he ascribed to

him, though the title is misquoted, a work written by the younger.

[383] "When he was in Paris," Hazlitt writes, "and went to Galignani's,

he sat down in an outer room to look at some book he wanted to see; none

of the clerks had the least suspicion who he was. When it was found out,

the place was in a commotion."--From Mr. Alexander Ireland's excellent

_Selections from Hazlitt's writings,_ 8vo, Lond. 1889, p. 482.

[384] _Ivanhoe_ might have borne a motto somewhat analogous to the

inscription which Frederick the Great's predecessor used to affix to his

attempts at portrait-painting when he had the gout: "Fredericus I. in

tormentis pinxit."--_Recollections of Sir Walter Scott_, p. 240. Lond.

1837.

NOVEMBER

_November_ 1.--I suppose the ravishing is going to begin, for we have

had the Dames des Halles, with a bouquet like a maypole, and a speech

full of honey and oil, which cost me ten francs; also a small

worshipper, who would not leave his name, but came _seulement pour avoir

le plaisir, la félicité_ etc. etc. All this jargon I answer with

corresponding _blarney_ of my own, for "have I not licked the black

stone of that ancient castle?" As to French, I speak it as it comes, and

like Doeg in _Absalom and Achitophel_--

"----dash on through thick and thin,

Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in."

We went this morning with M. Gallois to the Church of St. Genevieve, and

thence to the College Henri IV., where I saw once more my old friend

Chevalier.[385] He was unwell, swathed in a turban of nightcaps and a

multiplicity of _robes de chambre_; but he had all the heart and the

vivacity of former times. I was truly glad to see the kind old man. We

were unlucky in our day for sights, this being a high festival--All

Souls' Day. We were not allowed to scale the steeple of St. Genevieve,

neither could we see the animals at the Jardin des Plantes, who, though

they have no souls, it is supposed, and no interest of course in the

devotions of the day, observe it in strict retreat, like the nuns of

Kilkenny. I met, however, one lioness walking at large in the Jardin,

and was introduced. This was Madame de Souza,[386] the authoress of some

well-known French romances of a very classical character, I am told,

for I have never read them. She must have been beautiful, and is still

well-looked. She is the mother of the handsome Count de Flahault, and

had a very well-looking daughter with her, besides a son or two. She was

very agreeable. We are to meet again. The day becoming decidedly rainy,

we returned along the Boulevards by the Bridge of Austerlitz, but the

weather was so indifferent as to spoil the fine show.

We dined at the Ambassador's--Lord Granville, formerly Lord Leveson

Gower. He inhabits the same splendid house which Lord Castlereagh had in

1815, namely, Numero 30, Rue du Fauxbourg St. Honoré. It once belonged

to Pauline Borghese, and if its walls could speak, they might tell us

mighty curious stories. Without their having any tongue, they spoke to

my feelings "with most miraculous organ."[387] In these halls I had

often seen and conversed familiarly with many of the great and powerful,

who won the world by their swords, and divided it by their counsel.

Here I saw very much of poor Lord Castlereagh--a man of sense, presence

of mind, courage, and fortitude, which carried him through many an

affair of critical moment, when finer talents might have stuck in the

mire. He had been, I think, indifferently educated, and his mode of

speaking being far from logical or correct, he was sometimes in danger

of becoming almost ridiculous, in spite of his lofty presence, which had

all the grace of the Seymours, and his determined courage.[388] But then

he was always up to the occasion, and upon important matters was an

orator to convince, if not to delight, his hearers. He is gone, and my

friend Stanhope also, whose kindness this town so strongly recalls. It

is remarkable they were the only persons of sense and credibility who

both attested supernatural appearances on their own evidence, and both

died in the same melancholy manner. I shall always tremble when any

friend of mine becomes visionary.[389]

I have seen in these rooms the Emperor Alexander, Platoff,

Schwarzenberg, old Blucher, Fouché, and many a maréchal whose truncheon

had guided armies--all now at peace, without subjects, without dominion,

and where their past life, perhaps, seems but the recollection of a

feverish dream. What a group would this band have made in the gloomy

regions described in the Odyssey! But to lesser things. We were most

kindly received by Lord and Lady Granville, and met many friends, some

of them having been guests at Abbotsford; among these were Lords Ashley

and Morpeth--there were also Charles Ellis (Lord Seaford now), _cum

plurimis aliis_. Anne saw for the first time an entertainment _à la mode

de France_, where the gentlemen left the parlour with the ladies. In

diplomatic houses it is a good way of preventing political discussion,

which John Bull is always apt to introduce with the second bottle. We

left early, and came home at ten, much pleased with Lord and Lady

Granville's kindness, though it was to be expected, as our

recommendations came from Windsor.

_November_ 2.--Another gloomy day--a pize upon it!--and we have settled

to go to Saint Cloud, and dine, if possible, with the Drummonds at

Auteuil. Besides, I expect poor W.R. S[pencer] to breakfast. There is

another thought which depresses me.

Well--but let us jot down a little politics, as my book has a pretty

firm lock. The Whigs may say what they please, but I think the Bourbons

will stand. Gallois, no great Royalist, says that the Duke of Orleans

lives on the best terms with the reigning family, which is wise on his

part, for the golden fruit may ripen and fall of itself, but it would be

dangerous to

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

The army, which was Bonaparte's strength, is now very much changed by

the gradual influence of time, which has removed many, and made invalids

of many more. The citizens are neutral, and if the King will govern

according to the Charte, and, what is still more, according to the

habits of the people, he will sit firm enough, and the constitution will

gradually attain more and more reverence as age gives it authority, and

distinguishes it from those temporary and ephemeral governments, which

seemed only set up to be pulled down. The most dangerous point in the

present state of France is that of religion. It is, no doubt, excellent

in the Bourbons to desire to make France a religious country; but they

begin, I think, at the wrong end. To press the observances and ritual of

religion on those who are not influenced by its doctrines is planting

the growing tree with its head downwards. Rites are sanctified by

belief; but belief can never arise out of an enforced observance of

ceremonies; it only makes men detest what is imposed on them by

compulsion. Then these Jesuits, who constitute emphatically an _imperium

in imperio_, labouring first for the benefit of their own order, and

next for that of the Roman See--what is it but the introduction into

France of a foreign influence, whose interest may often run counter to

the general welfare of the kingdom?

We have enough of ravishment. M. Meurice writes me that he is ready to

hang himself that we did not find accommodation at his hotel; and Madame

Mirbel came almost on her knees to have permission to take my portrait.

I was cruel; but, seeing her weeping-ripe, consented she should come

to-morrow and work while I wrote. A Russian Princess Galitzin, too,

demands to see me in the heroic vein; "_Elle vouloit traverser les mers

pour aller voir S.W.S_.," and offers me a rendezvous at my hotel. This

is precious tomfoolery; however, it is better than being neglected like

a fallen sky-rocket, which seemed like to be my fate last year.

We went to Saint Cloud with my old friend Mr. Drummond, now at a pretty

_maison de campagne_ at Auteuil. Saint Cloud, besides its unequalled

views, is rich in remembrances. I did not fail to revisit the

_Orangerie_, out of which Bon. expelled the Council of [Five Hundred]. I

thought I saw the scoundrels jumping the windows, with the bayonets at

their rumps. What a pity the house was not two stories high! I asked the

Swiss some questions on the _locale_, which he answered with becoming

caution, saying, however, that "he was not present at the time." There

are also new remembrances. A separate garden, laid out as a playground

for the royal children, is called Il Trocadero,[391] from the siege of

Cadiz [1823]. But the Bourbons should not take military ground--it is

firing a pop-gun in answer to a battery of cannon.

All within the house is changed. Every trace of Nap. or his reign

totally done away, as if traced in sand over which the tide has passed.

Moreau and Pichegru's portraits hang in the royal ante-chamber. The

former has a mean look; the latter has been a strong and stern-looking

man. I looked at him, and thought of his death-struggles. In the

guard-room were the heroes of La Vendée--Charette with his white bonnet,

the two La Rochejacqueleins, Lescure, in an attitude of prayer,

Stofflet, the gamekeeper, with others.

We dined at Auteuil. Mrs. Drummond, formerly the beautiful Cecilia

Telfer, has lost her looks, but kept her kind heart. On our return, went

to the Italian opera, and saw _Figaro_. Anne liked the music; to me it

was all caviare. A Mr. ------ dined with us; sensible, liberal in his

politics, but well informed and candid.

_November_ 3.--Sat to Mad. Mirbel--Spencer at breakfast. Went out and

had a long interview with Marshal Macdonald, the purport of which I have

put down elsewhere. Visited Princess Galitzin, and also Cooper, the

American novelist. This man, who has shown so much genius, has a good

deal of the manner, or want of manner, peculiar to his countrymen.[392]

He proposed to me a mode of publishing in America by entering the book

as [the] property of a citizen. I will think of this. Every little

helps, as the tod says, when, etc. At night at the Theatre de Madame,

where we saw two _petit_ pieces, _Le Mariage de Raison_, and _Le plus

beau jour de ma vie_--both excellently played. Afterwards at Lady

Granville's rout, which was as splendid as any I ever saw--and I have

seen _beaucoup dans ce genre_. A great number of ladies of the first

rank were present, and if honeyed words from pretty lips could surfeit,

I had enough of them. One can swallow a great deal of whipped cream, to

be sure, and it does not hurt an old stomach.

_November_ 4.--- Anne goes to sit to Mad. Mirbel. I called after ten,

Mr. Cooper and Gallois having breakfasted with me. The former seems

quite serious in desiring the American attempt. I must, however, take

care not to give such a monopoly as to prevent the American public from

receiving the works at the prices they are accustomed to. I think I may

as well try if the thing can be done.

After ten I went with Anne to the Tuileries, where we saw the royal

family pass through the Glass Gallery as they went to Chapel. We were

very much looked at in our turn, and the King, on passing out, did me

the honour to say a few civil words, which produced a great sensation.

Mad. la Dauphine and Mad. de Berri curtsied, smiled, and looked

extremely gracious; and smiles, bows, and curtsies rained on us like

odours, from all the courtiers and court ladies of the train. We were

conducted by an officer of the Royal Gardes du Corps to a convenient

place in chapel, where we had the pleasure of hearing the grand mass

performed with excellent music.

I had a perfect view of the King and royal family. The King is the same

in age as I knew him in youth at Holyrood House--debonair and courteous

in the highest degree. Mad. Dauphine resembles very much the prints of

Marie Antoinette, in the profile especially. She is not, however,

beautiful, her features being too strong, but they announce a great deal

of character, and the princess whom Bonaparte used to call the _man_ of

the family. She seemed very attentive to her devotions. The Duchess of

Berri seemed less immersed in the ceremony, and yawned once or twice.

She is a lively-looking blonde--looks as if she were good-humoured and

happy, by no means pretty, and has a cast with her eyes; splendidly

adorned with diamonds, however. After this gave Mad. Mirbel a sitting,

where I encountered _le général_, her uncle,[393] who was _chef de

l'état major_ to Bonaparte. He was very communicative, and seemed an

interesting person, by no means over much prepossessed in favour of his

late master, whom he judged impartially, though with affection.

We came home and dined in quiet, having refused all temptations to go

out in the evening; this on Anne's account as well as my own. It is not

quite gospel, though Solomon says it--the eye _can_ be tired with

seeing, whatever he may allege in the contrary. And then there are so

many compliments. I wish for a little of the old Scotch causticity. I am

something like the bee that sips treacle.

_November_ 5.--I believe I must give up my Journal till I leave Paris.

The French are literally outrageous in their civilities--bounce in at

all hours, and drive one half mad with compliments. I am ungracious not

to be so entirely thankful as I ought to this kind and merry people. We

breakfasted with Mad. Mirbel, where were the Dukes of Fitz-James, and, I

think, Duras,[394] goodly company--but all's one for that. I made rather

an impatient sitter, wishing to talk much more than was agreeable to

Madame. Afterwards we went to the Champs Elysées, where a balloon was

let off, and all sorts of frolics performed for the benefit of the _bons

gens de Paris_--besides stuffing them with victuals. I wonder how such a

civic festival would go off in London or Edinburgh, or especially in

Dublin. To be sure, they would not introduce their shillelahs! But in

the classic taste of the French, there were no such gladiatorial doings.

To be sure, they have a natural good-humour and gaiety which inclines

them to be pleased with themselves, and everything about them.

We dined at the Ambassador's, where was a large party, Lord Morpeth, the

Duke of Devonshire, and others--all were very kind. Pozzo di Borgo

there, and disposed to be communicative. A large soirée. Home at eleven.

These hours are early, however.

_November_ 6.--Cooper came to breakfast, but we were _obsédés partout_.

Such a number of Frenchmen bounced in successively, and exploded, I mean

discharged, their compliments, that I could hardly find an opportunity

to speak a word, or entertain Mr. Cooper at all. After this we sat again

for our portraits. Mad. Mirbel took care not to have any one to divert

my attention, but I contrived to amuse myself with some masons finishing

a façade opposite to me, who placed their stones, not like Inigo Jones,

but in the most lubberly way in the world, with the help of a large

wheel, and the application of strength of hand. John Smith of Darnick,

and two of his men, would have done more with a block and pulley than

the whole score of them. The French seem far behind in machinery.--We

are almost eaten up with kindness, but that will have its end. I have

had to parry several presents of busts, and so forth. The funny thing

was the airs of my little friend. We had a most affectionate

parting--wet, wet cheeks on the lady's side.[395] The pebble-hearted cur

shed as few tears as Crab of dogged memory.[396]

Went to Galignani's, where the brothers, after some palaver, offered me

£105 for the sheets of Napoleon, to be reprinted at Paris in English. I

told them I would think of it. I suppose Treuttel and Wurtz had

apprehended something of this kind, for they write me that they had made

a bargain with my publisher (Cadell, I suppose) for the publishing of my