Third.—I feel myself decidedly weaker in point of health, and am now confirmed I have had a paralytic touch. I speak and read with embarrassment, and even my handwriting seems to stammer. This general failure

"With mortal crisis doth portend, My days to appropinque an end."[410]

I am not solicitous about this, only if I were worthy I would pray God for a sudden death, and no interregnum between I cease to exercise reason and I cease to exist.

The Scotts of Harden, Pringles of Stitchill, and Russells of Ashestiel, are all here; I am scarce fit for company though.

January 2.—Held a great palaver with the Scotts, etc.

I find my language apt to fail me; but this is very like to be fancy, and I must be cautious of giving way to it. This cautions me against public exertion much more than Cadell's prognostications, which my blood rises against, and which are ill calculated to keep me in restraint. We dozed through a gloomy day, being the dullest of all possible thaws.

January 3.—I had a letter from the Lord Chief Commissioner, mentioning the King's intention to take care of Charles's interests and promotion in the Foreign Office, an additional reason why I should not plunge rashly into politics, yet not one which I can understand as putting a padlock on my lips neither. I may write to L.C.C. that I may be called on to express an opinion on the impending changes, that I have an opinion, and a strong one, and that I hope this fresh favour [may not be regarded] as padlocking my lips at a time when it would otherwise be proper to me to speak or write. I am shocked to find that I have not the faculty of delivering myself with facility—an embarrassment which may be fanciful, but is altogether as annoying as if real.

January 4.—A base, gloomy day, and dispiriting in proportion. I walked out with Swanston[411] for about an hour: everything gloomy as the back of the chimney when there is no fire in it. My walk was a melancholy one, feeling myself weaker at every step and not very able to speak. This surely cannot be fancy, yet it looks something like it. If I knew but the extent at which my inability was like to stop, but every day is worse than another. I have trifled much time, too much; I must try to get afloat to-morrow, perhaps getting an amanuensis might spur me on, for one-half is nerves. It is a sad business though.

January 5.—Very indifferent, with more awkward feelings than I can well bear up against. My voice sunk and my head strangely confused. When I begin to form my ideas for conversation expressions fail me, even in private conversation, yet in solitude they are sufficiently arranged. I incline to hold that these ugly symptoms are the work of imagination; but, as Dr. Adam Ferguson,[412] a firm man if ever there was one in the world, said on such an occasion, What is worse than imagination? As Anne was vexed and frightened, I allowed her to send for young Clarkson. Of course he could tell but little, save what I knew before.

January 6.—A letter from Henry Scott about the taking ground for keeping the reform in Scotland upon the Scottish principles. I will write him my private sentiments, but avoid being a boute-feu.

Go this day to Selkirk, where I found about 120 and more persons of that burgh and Galashiels, who were sworn in as special constables, enough to maintain the peace. What shocked me particularly was the weakness of my voice and the confusion of my head attempting to address them, which was really a poor affair. On my return I found the Rev. Mr. Milne of Quebec, a friend of my sister-in-law. Another time would have been better for company, but Captain John Ferguson and Mr. Laidlaw coming in to dinner, we got over the day well enough.

January 7.—A fine frosty day, and my spirits lighter. I have a letter of great comfort from Walter, who in a manly, handsome, and dutiful manner expressed his desire to possess the library and movables of every kind at Abbotsford, with such a valuation laid upon them as I choose to impose. This removes the only delay to making my will. Supposing the literary property to clear the debts by aid of insurances and other things, about 1835 it will come into my person, and I will appoint the whole to work off the heritable debt of L10,000. If the literary property can produce that sum, besides what it has already done, I would convey it to the three younger children.

January 8.—Spent much time in writing instructions for my last will and testament. Sent off parcel by Dr. Milne, who leaves to-day. Have up two boys for shop-lifting. Remained at Galashiels till four o'clock, and returned starved. Could work none, and was idle all evening—try to-morrow for a work-day; so loiter on.

January 10.—Went over to Galashiels, and was busied the whole time till three o'clock about a petty thieving affair, and had before me a pair of gallows'-birds, to whom I could say nothing for total want of proof, except, like the sapient Elbow, Thou shalt continue there; know thou, thou shalt continue.[413] A little gallow brood they were, and their fate will catch them. Sleepy, idle, and exhausted on this. Wrought little or none in the evening.

Wrote a long letter to Henry [Scott], who is a fine fellow, and what I call a heart of gold. He has sound parts, good sense, and is a true man. Also, I wrote to my excellent friend the Lord Chief [Commissioner]. I thought it right to say that I accepted with gratitude his Majesty's goodness, but trusted it was not to bind me to keep my fingers from pen and ink should a notion impress me that I could help the country. I walked a little, to my exceeding refreshment. I am using that family ungratefully. But I will not, for a punctilio, avoid binding, if I can, a strong party together for the King and country, and if I see I can do anything, or have a chance of it, I will not fear for the skin-cutting. It is the selfishness of this generation that drives me mad.

"A hundred pounds? Ha! thou hast touched me nearly."

I will get a parcel copied to-morrow; wrote several letters at night.

January 11.—Wrote and sent off three of my own pages in the morning, then walked with Swanston. I tried to write before dinner, but, with drowsiness and pain in my head, made little way. My friend Will Laidlaw came in to dinner, and after dinner kindly offered his services as amanuensis. Too happy was I, and I immediately plunged him into the depths of Count Robert, so we got on three or four pages, worth perhaps double the number of print. I hope it did not take him too short, but after all to keep the press going without an amanuensis is impossible, and the publishers may well pay a sponsible person. He comes back to-morrow. It eases many of my anxieties, and I will stick to it. I really think Mr. Laidlaw is pleased with the engagement for the time. Sent off six close pages.

January 12.—I have a visit from Mr. Macdonald the sculptor, who wishes to model a head of me. He is a gentlemanlike man, and pleasant as most sculptors and artists of reputation are, yet it is an awful tax upon time. I must manage to dictate while he models, which will do well enough.

So there we sat for three hours or four, I sitting on a stool mounted on a packing-box, for the greater advantage; Macdonald modelling and plastering away, and I dictating, without interval, to good-natured Will Laidlaw, who wrought without intermission. It is natural to ask, Do I progress? but this is too feverish a question. A man carries no scales about him to ascertain his own value. I always remember the prayer of Virgil's sailor in extremity:—

"Non jam prima peto Mnestheus, neque vincere certo; Quamquam O!—Sed superent quibus hoc, Neptune, dedisti! Extremos pudeat rediisse: hoc vincite, cives, Et prohibete nefas!"[414]

We must to our oar; but I think this and another are all that even success would prompt me to write; and surely those that have been my defenders

"Have they so long held out with me untired, And stop they now for breath? Well, be it so."[415]

January 13.—Went to Selkirk on the business of the new high road. I perceive Whytbank and my cousin Colonel Russell of Ashestiel are disposed to peep into the expenses of next year's outlay, which must be provided by loan. This will probably breed strife. Wrote a hint of this to Charles Balfour. Agreed with Smith so far as contracting for the Bridges at L1200 each. I suspect we are something like the good manager who distressed herself with buying bargains.

January 15.—Gave the morning from ten till near two to Mr. Macdonald, who is proceeding admirably with his bust. It is bloody cold work, but he is an enthusiast and much interested; besides, I can sit and dictate owing to Mr. Laidlaw, and so get forward, while I am advancing Lorenzo di Guasco, which is his travelling name. I wrote several letters too, and got through some business. Walked, and took some exercise between one and three.

January 16.—Being Sunday, read prayers. Mr. and Mrs. James[416] go to look for a house, which they desire to take in this country. As Anne is ill, the presence of strangers, though they are pleasant, is rather annoying. Macdonald continues working to form a new bust out of my old scalp. I think it will be the last sitting which I will be enticed to. Thanks to Heaven, the work finishes to-morrow.[417]

January 17.—This morning, when I came down-stairs, I found Mr. Macdonald slabbering away at the model. He has certainly great enthusiasm about his profession, which is a sine qua non. It was not till twelve that a post-chaise carried off my three friends.

I had wrote two hours when Dr. Turner came in, and I had to unfold my own complaints. I was sick of these interruptions, and dismissed Mr. Laidlaw, having no hope of resuming my theme with spirit. God send me more leisure and fewer friends to peck it away by tea-spoonfuls!

Another fool sends to entreat an autograph, which he should be ashamed in civility to ask, as I am to deny it. I got notice of poor Henry Mackenzie's death. He has long maintained a niche in Scottish Literature—gayest of the gay, though most sensitive of the sentimental.

January 18.—Came down from my bedroom at eight, and took a rummage in the way of putting things to rights. Dictated to Laidlaw till about one o'clock, during which time it was rainy. Afterwards I walked, sliding about in the mud, and very uncomfortable. In fact, there is no mistaking the three sufficients,[418] and Fate is now straitening its circumvallations round me. Little likely to be better than I am. I am heart-whole as a biscuit, and may last on as now for eight or ten years; the thing is not uncommon, considering I am only in my sixtieth year. I cannot walk; but the intense cold weather may be to blame in this. My riding is but a scramble, but it may do well enough for exercise; and though it is unpleasant to find one's enjoyment of hill and vale so much abridged, yet still when I enjoy my books, and am without acute pain, I have but little to complain of, considering the life I have led so long.

"So hap what may; Time and the hour run through the roughest day."[419]

Mr. Laidlaw came down at ten, and we wrought till one. This should be a good thing for an excellent man, and is an important thing to me, as it saves both my eyesight and nerves, which last are cruelly affected by finding those "who look out of the windows" grow gradually darker and darker.[420] Rode out, or more properly, was carried out, into the woods to see the course of a new road, which may serve to carry off the thinnings of the trees, and for rides. It is very well lined, and will serve both for beauty and convenience. Mr. Laidlaw engages to come back to dinner, and finish two or three more pages. Met my agreeable and lady-like neighbour, Mrs. Brewster, on my pony, and I was actually ashamed to be seen by her.

"Sir Dennis Brand, and on so poor a steed."[421]

I believe detestable folly of this kind is the very last that leaves us. One would have thought I ought to have little vanity at this time o' day; but it is an abiding appurtenance of the old Adam, and I write for penance what, like a fool, I actually felt.

January 19.—Wrote on by Mr. Laidlaw's assistance. Things go bobbishly enough; we have a good deal finished before dinner. Henry Scott comes to dine with me vis-a-vis, and we have a grand dish of politics. The friends of old Scotland want but a signal. A certain great lawyer says that if Sir W.S. wrote another Malachi it would set more men on fire than a dozen associations. This almost tempts me. But the canny lad says moreover that to appeal to national partiality, i.e. that you should call on Scotsmen to act like Scotsmen, is unfair, and he would be sorry it was known he, late and future placeman, should encourage such paw-paw doings. Yet if Sir W.S. could be got to stand forlorn hope, the legal gentleman would suggest, etc. etc. Suggest and be d—d. Sir W.S. knows when to [doff] his bonnet, and when to cock it in the face of all and sundry. Moreover, he will not be made a cat's-paw of, look you now.

January 20.—Wrought all morning; a monstrous packet of letters at mid-day. Borrow honest Laidlaw's fingers in the evening. I hope his pay will recompense him: it is better than "grieve-ing" or playing Triptolemus.[422] Should be, if I am hard-working, 100 guineas, which, with his house, cow, and free rent, would save, I believe, some painful thoughts to him and his amiable wife and children. We will see how the matter fudges. Almost finished the first volume.

January 21.—James Ballantyne in ecstasies at our plan of an amanuensis. I myself am sensible that my fingers begin to stammer—that is, to write one word instead of another very often. I impute this to fancy, the terrible agency of which is too visible in my illness, and it encourages me to hope the fatal warning is yet deferred. I feel lighter by a million ton since I made this discovery. If I can dictate freely, and without hesitation, my fear to speak at the meeting about the road was vain terror, and so Andiamo Caracci. Wrote some letters this afternoon.

January 22.—Mr. Laidlaw rather late of coming. One of his daughters has been ill, and he is an approved physician. Pity when one so gifted employs his skill on himself and family for all patients. We got on, however, to page 46.

January 23.—I wrought a little to-day. Walked to Chiefswood, or rather from it, as far only as Habbie's Howe. Came home, cold indeed, but hearty. Slept after dinner. I think the peep, real or imaginary, at the gates of death has given me firmness not to mind little afflictions. I have jumbled this and the preceding day strangely, when I went to Chiefswood and Huntly Burn. I thought this a week-day.

January 24.—Worked with Mr. Laidlaw, and, as the snow was on the ground, did so without intermission, which must be sinking to the spirits. Held on, however.

January 25.—Same drizzling waste, rendering my footing insecure, and leaving me no refuge but in sitting at home and working till one o'clock. Then retired upon the Sheriff Court processes. Bran,[423] poor fellow, lies yawning at my feet, and cannot think what is become of the daily scamper, which is all his master's inability affords him. This grieves me, by calling back the days of old. But I may call them as I may,

"Youth winna return, nor the days of lang syne."

January 26.—I have Skene and Mr. M'Culloch of Ardwell, to the relief of my spirits and the diminishing of my time. Mr. Laidlaw joined us at dinner.

Bitter cold.

January 27.—So fagged with my frozen vigils that I slept till after ten. When I lose the first two hours in the morning I can seldom catch them again during the whole day.

A friendly visit from Ebenezer Clarkson of Selkirk, a medical gentleman in whose experience and ingenuity I have much confidence, as well as his personal regard for myself. He is quite sensible of the hesitation of speech of which I complain, and thinks it arises from the stomach. Recommends the wild mustard as an aperient. But the brightest ray of hope is the chance that I may get some mechanical aid made by Fortune at Broughton Street, which may enable me to mount a pony with ease, and to walk without torture. This would, indeed, be almost a restoration of my youth, at least of a green old age full of enjoyment. The shutting one out from the face of living nature is almost worse than sudden death.

January 28.—I wrote with Laidlaw. It does not work clear; I do not know why. The plot is, nevertheless, a good plot, and full of expectation.[424] But there is a cloud over me, I think, and interruptions are frequent. I creep on, however.

January 29.—Much in the same way as yesterday, rather feeling than making way. Mr. Williams and his brother came in after dinner. Welcome both; yet the day was not happy. It consumed me an afternoon, which, though well employed, and pleasantly, had the disagreeable effect of my being kept from useful work.

January 30.—Snow deep, which makes me alter my purpose of going to town to-morrow. For to-day, my friends must amuse themselves as they can.

January 31 [to February 9, Edinburgh].—Retain my purpose, however, and set out for Edinburgh alone—that is, no one but my servant. The snow became impassable, and in Edinburgh I remain immovably fixed for ten days—that is, till Wednesday—never once getting out of doors, save to dinner, when I went and returned in a sedan chair. I commenced my quarantine in Mackenzie's Hotel,[425] where I was deadly cold, and it was tolerably noisy. The second day Mr. Cadell made a point of my coming to his excellent house, where I had no less excellent an apartment and the most kind treatment—- that is, not making a show of me, for which I was in but bad tune.[426] The physical folks, Abercrombie and Ross, bled me with cupping-glasses, purged me confoundedly, and restricted me of all creature comforts. But they did me good, as I am sure they meant to do sincerely; and I got rid of a giddy feeling, which I have been plagued with, and have certainly returned much better. I did not neglect my testamentary affairs. I executed my last will, leaving Walter burdened, by his own choice, with L1000 to Sophia, and another received at her marriage, and L2000 to Anne, and the same to Charles. He is to advance them money if they want it; if not, to pay them interest, which is his own choice, otherwise I would have sold the books and rattletraps. I have made provisions for clearing my estate by my publications, should it be possible; and should that prove possible, from the time of such clearance being effected, to be a fund available to all my children who shall be alive or leave representatives. My bequests must, many of them, seem hypothetical; but the thing, being uncertain, must be so stated.

Besides, during the unexpected stay in town, I employed Mr. Fortune, an ingenious artist,[427] to make a machine to assist my lame leg,—an odd enough purchase to be made at this time of day, yet who would not purchase ease? I dined with the Lord Chief Commissioner, with the Skenes twice, with Lord Medwyn, and was as happy as anxiety about my daughter would permit me.

The appearance of the streets was most desolate: the hackney-coaches, with four horses, strolling about like ghosts, the foot-passengers few but the lowest of the people.

I wrote a good deal of Count Robert, yet I cannot tell why my pen stammers egregiously, and I write horridly incorrect. I long to have friend Laidlaw's assistance.

FOOTNOTES:

[410] Hudibras.

[411] John Swanston, a forester at Abbotsford, who did all he could to replace Tom Purdie.—Life, vol. x. p. 66.

[412] Dr. Ferguson, Sir Adam's father, died in 1816.—See Misc. Prose Works, vol. xix. pp. 331-33.

[413] See Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1.

[414] AEneid v. 194-7: thus rendered in English by Professor Conington:—

'Tis not the palm that Mnestheus seeks: No hope of Victory fires his cheeks: Yet, O that thought!—but conquer they To whom great Neptune wills the day: Not to be last make that your aim, And triumph by averting shame.



[415] King Richard the Third, Act IV. Sc. 2.

[416] Mr. G.P.R. James, author of Richelieu, etc. He afterwards took Maxpopple for the season.

[417] Mr. Skene tells us that when No. 39 Castle Street was "displenished" in 1826, Scott sent him the full-length portrait of himself by Raeburn, now at Abbotsford, saying that he did not hesitate to claim his protection for the picture, which was threatened to be paraded under the hammer of the auctioneer, and he felt that his interposition to turn aside that buffet might admit of being justified. "As a piece of successful art, many might fancy the acquisition, but for the sake of the original he knew no refuge where it was likely to find a truer welcome. The picture accordingly remained many years in my possession, but when his health had begun to break, and the plan of his going abroad was proposed, I thought it would be proper to return the picture, for which purpose I had a most successful copy made of it, an absolute facsimile, for when the two were placed beside each, other it was almost impossible to determine which was the original and which the copy."—Reminiscences. Thus forestalling the wish expressed in the affecting letter now given, which belongs to this day. See ante, vol. i. p. 136 n.

"MY DEAR SKENE,—I have had no very pleasant news to send you, as I know it will give Mrs. Skene and you pain to know that I am suffering under a hundred little ailments which have greatly encroached upon the custom of the season which I used to take. On this I could say much, but it is better to leave alone what must be said with painful feeling, and you would be vexed with reading.

"One thing I will put to rights with all others respecting my little personal affairs. I am putting [in order] this house with what it contains, and as Walter will probably be anxious to have a memorial of my better days, I intend to beg you and my dear Mrs. Skene ... to have it [the picture] copied by such an artist as you should approve of, to supply the blank which must then be made on your hospitable walls with the shadow of a shade. If the opportunity should occur of copying the picture to your mind, I will be happy to have the copy as soon as possible. You must not think that I am nervous or foolishly apprehensive that I take these precautions. They are necessary and right, and if one puts off too long, we sometimes are unfit for the task when we desire to take it up....

"When the weather becomes milder, I hope Mrs. Skene and you, and some of the children, will come out to brighten the chain of friendship with your truly faithful,

WALTER SCOTT.

"ABBOTSFORD, 16 January 1831."

[418] Sir W. alludes to Mrs. Piozzi's Tale of The Three Warnings.—J.G.L.

[419] Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 3.

[420] Eccles. xii. 3.

[421] Crabbe's Borough, Letter xiii.—J.G.L.

[422] See Pirate.

[423] The deer-hound Bran which was presented by Macpherson of Cluny; Nimrod was Glengarry's gift.—See letter to Miss Edgeworth, printed in Life, vol. ix. p. 345.

[424] I Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 3.

[425] No. 1 Castle Street.

[426] "His host perceived that he was unfit for any company but the quietest, and had sometimes one old friend, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Clerk, or Mr. Skene to dinner, but no more. He seemed glad to see them, but they all observed him with pain. He never took the lead in conversation, and often remained altogether silent. In the mornings he wrote usually for several hours at Count Robert; and Mr. Cadell remembers in particular, that on Ballantyne's reminding him that a motto was wanted for one of the chapters already finished, he looked out for a moment at the gloomy weather, and penned these lines—

'The storm increases—'tis no sunny shower, Foster'd in the moist breast of March or April, Or such as parched summer cools his lips with. Heaven's windows are flung wide; the inmost deeps Call in hoarse greeting one upon another; On comes the flood in all its foaming horrors, And where's the dyke shall stop it?'"—The Deluge—a Poem.

—Life, vol. x. p. 37.

[427] A skilful mechanist, who, by a clever piece of handiwork, gave Sir Walter great relief, but only for a brief period.—Life, vol. x, p. 38.



FEBRUARY.

February 9,[Abbotsford].—A heavy and most effective thaw coming on I got home about five at night, and found the haugh covered with water, dogs, pigs, cows, to say nothing of human beings, all who slept at the offices in danger of being drowned. They came up to the mansion-house about midnight, with such various clamour, that Anne thought the house was attacked by Captain Swing and all the Radicals.

February 10.—I set to work with Mr. Laidlaw, and had after that a capital ride; my pony, little used, was somewhat frisky, but I rode on to Huntly Burn. Began my diet on my new regime, and like it well, especially porridge to supper. It is wonderful how old tastes rise.

February 11.—Wrought again to-day, and John Swanston walked with me. Wrote many letters, and sent copy to Ballantyne. Rode as usual. It is well enough to ride every day, but confoundedly tiresome to write it down.

February 13.—I did not ask down Mr. Laidlaw, thinking it fair to spare his Sunday. I had a day of putting to rights, a disagreeable work which must be done. I took the occasion to tell Mr. Cadell that Malachi will break forth again; but I will not make a point of it with him. I do not fear there will be as many to strike up as to strike down, and I have a strong notion we may gain the day. I have a letter from the Duchess of Wellington, asking a copy of Melville's Memoirs. She shall have it if it were my last.

February 14.—I had hardly begun my letter to Mr. Cadell than I began also to "pull in resolution."[428] I considered that I had no means of retreat; and that in all my sober moments, meaning my unpassionate ones, for the doctors have taken from me the means of producing Dutch courage, I have looked on political writing as a false step, and especially now when I have a good deal at stake. So, upon the whole, I cancelled the letter announcing the publication. If this was actually meanness it is a foible nobody knows of. Anne set off for Edinburgh after breakfast. Poor girl, she is very nervous. I wrote with Mr. L. till one—then had a walk till three—then wrote this diary till four. Must try to get something for Mr. Laidlaw, for I am afraid I am twaddling. I do not think my head is weakened, but a strange vacillation makes me suspect. Is it not thus that men begin to fail, becoming, as it were, infirm of purpose,

"... that way madness lies; let me shun that: No more of that ..."[429]

Yet, why be a child about it? what must be, will be.

February 15.—I wrote and corrected through the long day till one o'clock; then rode out as far as Dr. Scott's, and called on him. Got a fresh dose of proofs at Mathieson's, and returned home. At nine o'clock at night had a card from Miss Bell [Maclachlan], wishing to speak to me about some Highland music. Wrote for answer I knew nothing of the matter, but would be happy to see Mrs. and Miss Bell to breakfast. I had a letter of introduction by Robert Chambers, which I declined, being then unwell. But as Trotter of Braid said, "The ladies maun come."

February 16.—Mrs. and Miss Bell Maclachlan of the West Highlands, mother and daughter, made their way to me to breakfast. I did not wish to see them, being strangers; but she is very pretty—that is, the daughter—and enthusiastic, and that is always flattering to an old gentleman. She wishes to have words to Celtic melodies, and I have promised her some, to the air of Crochallan, and incline to do her good, perhaps, to the extent of getting her words from Lord Francis Leveson Gower, Lockhart, and one or two others. We parted, she pleased with my willing patronage, and I with an uncommon handsome countenance she showed me.

This detained Mr. Laidlaw re infecta, and before I had written a page the pony came to the door; but wrote something after dinner.

February 17 and 18.—We had the usual course of food, study, and exercise in the forenoon. Was extremely sleepy in the afternoon, which made, I fear, but bad work. We progress, however. In riding met Sir Adam Ferguson, and asked him and his brother the Colonel to dinner to-morrow. Wrote in the meantime as usual.

February 19.—Plagued by the stay for leg starting a screw bolt, which is very inconvenient. Sent off, this morning, proofs as far as end of first volume, and 20 manuscript pages, equal to about a quarter of the second. Is it good or not? I cannot say. I think it better as it goes on; and so far so good. I am certain I have written worse abomination, as John Ballantyne, poor fellow, used to say.

February 20.—Wrote five pages this morning; then rode out to the hill and looked at some newly planted, rather transplanted, trees. Mr. Laidlaw gone for the day. I trust I shall have proofs to correct. In the meantime I may suck my paws and prepare some copy, or rather assemble the raw material.

February 21.—I made up parcels by mail-coach and Blucher to go to-morrow—second volume Redgauntlet. At one fetched a walk through wet and dry, looking at the ravages of the late flood. After I came in, till two hours after tea-time, busied with the Sheriff Court processes, which I have nearly finished. After this I will lounge over my annotating. The Tales of the Crusades come next.

February 22.—Wrought with Mr. L. from ten to three, then took the pony carriage, with the purpose of going to Chiefswood, but a heavy squall came on with snow, so we put about-ship and returned. Read Lyttelton's History of England to get some notes for Crusaders, vol. i. After dinner Mr. Laidlaw from six to eight. Sent off six pages.

February 23, 24, 25.—These three days I can hardly be said to have varied from my ordinary.

Rose at seven, dressed before eight, wrote letters, or did any little business till a quarter past nine. Then breakfast. Mr. Laidlaw comes from ten till one. Then take the pony, and ride quantum mutatus two or three miles, John Swanston walking by my bridle-rein lest I fall off. Come home about three or four. Then to dinner on a single plain dish and half a tumbler, or by'r lady three-fourths of a tumbler, of whisky and water. Then sit till six o'clock, when enter Mr. Laidlaw again, and work commonly till eight. After this, work usually alone till half-past nine, then sup on porridge and milk, and so to bed. The work is half done. If any [one] asks what time I take to think on the composition, I might say, in one point of view, it was seldom five minutes out of my head the whole day. In another light, it was never the serious subject of consideration at all, for it never occupied my thoughts entirely for five minutes together, except when I was dictating to Mr. Laidlaw.

February 26.—Went through the same routine, only, being Saturday, Mr. Laidlaw does not come in the evening. I think there is truth in the well-known phrase, Aurora musis amica. I always have a visit of invention between six and seven—that is, if anything has been plaguing me, in the way of explanation, I find it in my head when I wake. I have need of it to-night.

February 27.—Being Saturday, no Mr. Laidlaw came yesterday evening, nor to-day, being Sunday. Truth is, I begin to fear I was working too hard, and gave myself to putting things in order, and working at the Magnum, and reading stupid German novels in hopes a thought will strike me when I am half occupied with other things. In fact, I am like the servant in the Clandestine Marriage,[430] who assures his mistress he always watches best with his eyes shut.

February 28.—Past ten, and Mr. Laidlaw, the model of a clerk in other respects, is not come yet. He has never known the value of time, so is not quite accurate in punctuality; but that, I hope, will come if I can drill him to it without hurting him. I think I hear him coming. I am like the poor wizard who is first puzzled how to raise the devil and then how to employ him. But vogue la galere. Worked till one, then walked with great difficulty and pain till half-past two. I think I can hardly stir without my pony, which is a sad pity. Mr. Laidlaw dines here.

FOOTNOTES:

[428] Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.

[429] Lear, Act III. Sc. 4.

[430] Colman the elder.



MARCH.

March 1, 2, 3.—All these three days I wrote forenoon and fagged afternoon. Kept up the ball indifferent well, but began to tire on the third, and suspected that I was flat—a dreary suspicion, not easily chased away when once it takes root.

March 4.—Laid aside the novel, and began with vigour a review of Robson's Essay on Heraldry;[431] but I missed some quotations which I could not get on without. I gave up, and took such a rash ride nowadays. Returned home, and found Colonel Russell there on a visit. Then we had dinner, and afterwards the making up this miserable Journal.

March 5.—I have a letter from our member, Whytbank, adjuring me to assist the gentlemen of the county with an address against the Reform Bill, which menaces them with being blended with Peeblesshire, and losing of consequence one half of their franchise. Mr. Pringle conjures me not to be very nice in choosing my epithets. Mr. Pringle, Torwoodlee, comes over and speaks to the same purpose, adding, it will be the greatest service I can do the county, etc. This, in a manner, drives me out of a resolution to keep myself clear of politics, and "let them fight dog, fight bear." But I am too easy to be persuaded to bear a hand. The young Duke of Buccleuch comes to visit me also; so I promised to shake my duds and give them a cast of my calling, fall back, fall edge.

March 7-10.—In these four days I drew up, with much anxiety, an address reprobatory of the Bill, both with respect to Selkirkshire, and in its general purport. I was not mealy-mouthed, and those who heard the beginning could hardly avoid listening to the end. It was certainly in my best style, and would have made a deal of noise. From the uncompromising style it would have attracted attention. Mr. Laidlaw, though he is on t'other side on the subject, thinks it the best thing I ever wrote; and I myself am happy to find that it cannot be said to smell of the apoplexy. The pointed passages were, on the contrary, clever and well put. But it was too declamatory, too much like a pamphlet, and went far too generally into opposition to please the country gentlemen, who are timidly inclined to dwell on their own grievances rather than the public wrongs.

March 11.—This day we had our meeting at Selkirk. I found Borthwickbrae (late member) had sent the form of an address, which was finished by Mr. Andrew Lang.[432] It was the reverse of mine in every respect. It was short, and to the point. It only contained a remonstrance against the incorporation with [Peebles]shire, and left it to be inferred that they approved the Bill in other respects.[433] As I saw that it met the ideas of the meeting (six in number) better by far than such an address as mine, I instantly put it in my pocket. But I endeavoured to add to their complaint of a private wrong a general clause, stating their sense of the hazard of passing a Bill full of such violent innovations at once on the public. But though Harden, Alva, and Torwoodlee voted for this measure, it was refused by the rest of the meeting, to my disappointment; since in its present state it will not be attended to, and is in fact too milk-and-water to attract notice. I am, however, personally out of the scrape; I was a fool to stir such a mess of skimmed milk with so honourable an action.[434] If some of the gentlemen of the press get hold of this story, what would they make of it, and how little would I care! One thing is clear: it gives me a right to decline future interference, and let the world wag, Sessa.[435]

March 12.—Wrote the history of my four days' labour in vain to Sandy Pringle, Whytbank, and so transeat with caeteris erroribus. I only gave way to one jest. A ratcatcher was desirous to come and complete his labours in my house, and I, who thought he only talked and laughed with the servants, recommended him to go to the head courts and meetings of freeholders, where he would find rats in plenty.

March 13.—I have finally arranged a thorny transaction. Mr. Cadell has an interest in some of the Novels, amounting to one-half; but the following are entirely my own, viz.:—

St. Ronan's Well, 3 vols. Tales of Crusaders, 4 " First Chronicles, 2 " Anne of Geierstein, 3 " Redgauntlet, 3 " Woodstock, 3 " Second Chronicles, 3 " Count Robert, 3 "

In all, twenty-four volumes, which will begin printing after Quentin Durward, and concludes the year 1831. For half the property he proposes to pay 6000 guineas on 2d February 1831 [1832?]. I think that with this sum, and others coming in, I may reduce the debt to L45,000.

But I do not see clearly enough through this affair to accept this offer. First, I cannot see that there is wisdom in engaging Mr. Cadell in deep speculations, unless they served him very much. I am, in this respect, a burnt child: I have not forgotten the fire, or rather the furnace. Second, I think the property worth more, if publicly sold. Third, I cannot see any reasons which should render it advantageous for me to sell one half of this property, it being admittedly at the same [time] highly judicious to keep the other half. This does not fadge. Fourth, As to the immediate command of the money, I am not pressed for it, not having any advantage by paying it a year or two sooner or later. The actual proceeds of the sales will come in about 1834, and I daresay will not be far behind in amount the sum of L6000.

In short, I will not sell on a rainy day, as our proverb says. I have communicated my resolution to Cadell, to whom, no doubt, it will be a disappointment, for which I am sorry, but cannot help it.

March 14.—Had a very sensible and good-humoured answer from Mr. Cadell, readily submitting to my decision. He mentions, what I am conscious of, the great ease of accomplishing, if the whole is divided into two halves. But this is not an advantage to me, but to them who keep the books, and therefore I cannot be moved by it. It is the great advantage of uniformity, of which Malachi Malagrowther tells so much. I do not fear that Mr. Cadell will neglect the concern because he has not the large share in it which he had in the other. He is, I think, too honest a man. He has always shown himself every way willing and ready to help me, and verily he hath his reward; and I can afford him on that property a handsome percentage for the management. But if his fate was to lose considerably by this transaction, I must necessarily be a sufferer; if he be a great gainer, it is at my expense, so it is like the children's game of "Odds I win, evens you lose"—so will say no more about it. I think I will keep my ground nearly, so these cursed politics do not ruin the country. I am unable to sit at good men's boards, and Anne has gone to Mertoun to-day without me. I cannot walk or ride but for a mile or two. Naboclish! never mind. I am satisfied that I am heart-whole as a biscuit, and I may live to see the end of those affairs yet. I am driving on the Count of Paris right merrily. I have plenty of leisure, and vive la plume! I have arranged matters as I think for the best, so will think no more about it.

March 16.—The affair with Mr. Cadell being settled, I have only to arrange a set of regular employment for my time, without over-fatiguing myself. What I at present practise seems active enough for my capacity, and even if I should reach the threescore and ten, from which I am thrice three years distant, or nearer ten, the time may pass honourably, usefully, and profitably, both to myself and other people. My ordinary runs thus:—Rise at a quarter before seven; at a quarter after nine breakfast, with eggs, or in the singular number, at least; before breakfast private letters, etc.; after breakfast Mr. Laidlaw comes at ten, and we write together till one. I am greatly helped by this excellent man, who takes pains to write a good hand, and supplies the want of my own fingers as far as another person can. We work seriously at the task of the day till one o'clock, when I sometimes walk—not often, however, having failed in strength, and suffering great pain even from a very short walk. Oftener I take the pony for an hour or two and ride about the doors; the exercise is humbling enough, for I require to be lifted on horseback by two servants, and one goes with me to take care I do not fall off and break my bones, a catastrophe very like to happen. My proud promenade a pied or a cheval, as it happens, concludes by three o'clock. An hour intervenes for making up my Journal and such light work. At four comes dinner,—a plate of broth or soup, much condemned by the doctors, a bit of plain meat, no liquors stronger than small beer, and so I sit quiet to six o'clock, when Mr. Laidlaw returns, and remains with me till nine or three quarters past, as it happens. Then I have a bowl of porridge and milk, which I eat with the appetite of a child. I forgot to say that after dinner I am allowed half a glass of whisky or gin made into weak grog. I never wish for any more, nor do I in my secret soul long for cigars, though once so fond of them. About six hours per day is good working, if I can keep at it.

March 17.—Little of this day, but that it was so uncommonly windy that I was almost blown off my pony, and was glad to grasp the mane to prevent its actually happening. Rode round by Brigends. I began the third volume of Count Robert of Paris, which has been on the anvil during all these vexatious circumstances of politics and health. But "the blue heaven bends over all." It may be ended in a fortnight if I keep my scheme. But I will take time enough. This would be on Thursday. I would like it much.

March 18.—We get well on. Count Robert is finished so far as the second goes, and some twenty [pages] of the third. Blackwood's Magazine, after long bedaubing me with compliment, has began to bedaub Lockhart for my sake, or perhaps me for Lockhart's sake, with abuse. Lockhart's chief offence seems to have been explaining the humbug of showing up Hogg as a fool and blackguard in what he calls the Noctes.[436] For me I care wonderfully little either for his flattery or his abuse.[437]

March 19.—I made a hard working day—almost equal to twenty pages, but there was some reason for it, for Ballantyne writes me that the copy sent will not exceed 265 pages when the end of volume ii. is reached; so 45 more pages must be furnished to run it out to page 329. This is an awful cast back; so the gap is to be made up.

March 20.—I thought I was done with politics, but it is easy getting into the mess, and difficult and sometimes disgraceful to get out. I have a letter from Sheriff Oliver, desiring me to go [to Jedburgh] on Monday (to-morrow) and show countenance by adhering to a set of propositions, being a resolution. Though not well drawn, they are uncompromising enough; so I will not part company. Had a letter, too, from Henry Scott. He still expects to refuse the Bill. I wrote him that would but postpone the evil day, unless they could bring forward a strong Administration, and, what is most essential, a system of finance; otherwise it won't do. Henry has also applied to me for the rejected address. But this I shall decline.

March 22.—Went to-day at nine o'clock to the meeting. A great number present, with a tribune full of Reformers, who showed their sense of propriety by hissing, hooting, and making all sorts of noises; and these unwashed artificers are from henceforth to select our legislators. There was some speaking, but not good. I said something, for I could not sit quiet.[438]

We did not get home till about nine, having fasted the whole time. James, the blockhead, lost my poor Spice, a favourite terrier. The fool shut her in a stable, and somebody, [he] says, opened the door and let her out. I suspect she is lost for aye, for she was carried to Jedburgh in a post-chaise.

March 23.—The measure carried by a single vote.[439] In other circumstances one would hope for the interference of the House of Lords, but it is all hab-nab at a venture. The worst is that there is a popular party who want personal power, and are highly unfitted to enjoy it. It has fallen easily, the old Constitution; no bullying Mirabeau to assail, no eloquent Maury to defend. It has been thrown away like a child's broken toy. Well trained, the good sense of the people is much trusted to; we will see what it will do for us.[440]

The curse of Cromwell on those whose conceit brought us to this pass. Sed transeat. It is vain to mourn what cannot be mended.

March 24.—Frank Grant and his lady came here. Frank will, I believe, and if he attends to his profession, be one of the celebrated men of the age. He is well known to me as the companion of my sons and the partner of my daughters. In youth, that is in extreme youth, he was passionately fond of fox-hunting and other sports, but not of any species of gambling. He had also a strong passion for painting, and made a little collection. As he had sense enough to feel that a younger brother's fortune would not last long under the expenses of a good stud and a rare collection of chef-d'oeuvres, he used to avow his intention to spend his patrimony, about L10,000, and then again to make his fortune by the law. The first he soon accomplished. But the law is not a profession so easily acquired, nor did Frank's talents lie in that direction. His passion for painting turned out better. Nature had given him the rare power of judging soundly of painting, and in a remarkable degree the power of imitating it. Connoisseurs approved of his sketches, both in pencil and oils, but not without the sort of criticisms made on these occasions—that they were admirable for an amateur; but it could not be expected that he should submit to the technical drudgery absolutely necessary for a profession, and all that species of criticism which gives way before natural genius and energy of character.

Meantime Frank Grant, who was remarkably handsome, and very much the man of fashion, married a young lady with many possibilities, as Sir Hugh Evans says.[441] She was eldest sister of Farquharson of Invercauld, chief of that clan; and the young man himself having been almost paralysed by the malaria in Italy, Frank's little boy by this match becomes heir to the estate and chieftainship. In the meantime fate had another chance for him in the matrimonial line. At Melton-Mowbray, during the hunting season, he had become acquainted (even before his first marriage) with a niece of the Duke of Rutland, a beautiful and fashionable young woman, with whom he was now thrown into company once more. It was a natural consequence that they should marry. The lady had not much wealth, but excellent connections in society, to whom Grant's good looks and good breeding made him very acceptable.

March 25.—In the meantime Frank saw the necessity of doing something to keep himself independent, having, I think, too much spirit to become a Stulko,[442] drinking out the last glass of the bottle, riding the horses which the laird wishes to sell, and drawing sketches to amuse the lady and the children,—besides a prospect on Invercauld elevating him, when realised, to the rank of the laird's father.

March 26.—Grant was above all this, and honourably and manfully resolved to cultivate his taste for painting, and become a professional artist. I am no judge of painting, but I am conscious that Francis Grant possesses, with much taste, a sense of beauty derived from the best source, that of really good society, while in many modern artists, the total want of that species of feeling is so great as to be revolting. His former acquaintances render his immediate entrance into business completely secure, and it will rest with himself to carry on his success. He has, I think, that degree of energy and force of character which will make him keep and enlarge any reputation which he may acquire. He has confidence too in his own powers, always a requisite for a young painter whose aristocratic pretensions must be envied by [his less fortunate brethren].

March 27.—Frank Grant is still with me, and is well pleased—I think very deservedly so—with a cabinet picture of myself, armour, and so forth, together with my two noble staghounds of the greyhound race. I wish Cadell had got it; it is far better than Watson's—though his is well too. The dogs sat charmingly, but the picture took up some time.[443]

March 28.—We went out a little ride. The weather most tempting, the day beautiful. We rode and walked a little.

March 29.—We had an hour's sitting of the dogs, and a good deal of success. I cannot compose my mind on this public measure. It will not please those whom it is the object to please.

March 30.—Robert Dundas[444] and his wife—Miss Durham that was—came to spend a day or two. I was heartily glad to see him, being my earliest and best friend's son. John Swinton came by Blucher, on the part of an anti-Reform meeting in Edinburgh; exhorting me to take up the pen, but I declined and pleaded health, which, God knows, I have a right to urge. I might have urged also the chance of my breaking down, but there would be a cry of this kind which might very well prove real.

March 31.—Swinton returned in the forenoon yesterday after lunch. He took my denial very quietly, and said it would be wrong to press me. I have not shunned anything that came fairly on me, but I do not see the sense of standing forth a champion. It is said that the Duke of Buccleuch has been offered the title of Monmouth if he would cease to oppose. He said there were two objections—they would not give it him if he seriously thought of it, and he would not take it if they did. The Dundases went off to-day. I was glad I had seen them, although visitors rather interrupt work.

FOOTNOTES:

[431] The British Herald, by Thomas Robson, 3 vols. 4to, 1830. Mr. Lockhart says this review never was published.

[432] Mr. Andrew Lang, Sheriff and Commissary Clerk, and Clerk of Peace, for Selkirkshire, grandfather of Mr. Andrew Lang, the accomplished poet and man of letters of the present time. The tact and ability of the grandfather are noticed by Sir Walter in his letter to Lord Montagu of Oct. 3, 1819, describing Prince Leopold at Selkirk.—Life, vol. vi. p. 131.

[433] This proposal, resisted successfully in 1832, has since been put in force so far as Parliament is concerned.

[434] I Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 3.

[435] Taming of the Shrew, Introd.

[436] As this is the last reference to the Ettrick Shepherd in the Journal, it may be noted that Sir Walter, as late as March 23d, 1832, was still desirous to promote Hogg's welfare. In writing from Naples he says, in reference to the Shepherd's social success in London, "I am glad Hogg has succeeded so well. I hope he will make hay while the sun shines; but he must be aware that the Lion of this season always becomes the Boar of the next.... I will subscribe the proper sum, i.e. what you think right, for Hogg, by all means; and I pray God, keep farms and other absurd temptations likely to beset him out of his way. He has another chance for comfort if he will use common sense with his very considerable genius."

[437] This expression of irritation can easily be understood after reading the passages referred to in the twenty-ninth volume of Blackwood's Magazine, pp. 30-35, and 535-544. Readers of this Journal have seen what uphill work these "Letters on Demonology" were to the author, but the unsparing criticism of Christopher North must have appeared to the author as a very unfriendly act, more especially, he thought, if the critic really knew the conditions under which the book had been written.

[438] Mr. Lockhart says:—"He proposed one of the Tory resolutions in a speech of some length, but delivered in a tone so low, and with such hesitation in utterance, that only a few detached passages were intelligible to the bulk of the audience."—See Life, vol. x. pp. 46-8.

[439] The passing of the great Reform Bill in the House of Commons on the 22d March.

[440] His friend Richardson, who was a Whig, writes him from London on February 14:—"What a singular feeling it was to me to find Brougham Lord Chancellor, and Jeffrey and Cockburn in their present stations! I am afraid that the spirit of reform goes at present beyond the limits to which even the Government will go—and but for the large stock of good sense and feeling which I think yet pervades the country, I should tremble for the future."

[441] Merry Wives, Act I. Sc. 1.

[442] Stulko or Stulk (? Stocaire, in Irish), a word formerly in common use among the Irish, signifying an idle, lazy, good-for-nothing fellow.

[443] Mary Campbell, Lady Ruthven, for whom the picture was painted, was not only the friend of Scott, but she held relations more or less close with nearly every one famous in Art and Literature during the greater part of the nineteenth century. No mean artist herself, and though, perhaps, not a clever letter-writer, she had among her correspondents some of the most brilliant men of her day. She survived all her early friends, but had the gift of being attractive to the young, and for three generations was the delight of their children and grandchildren. Those who were privileged to share in the refined hospitality of Winton, never forgot either the picturesque old house (the supposed Ravenswood Castle of the Bride of Lammermoor), or its venerable mistress as she sat of an evening in her unique drawing-room, the walls of which were adorned with pictures of Grecian temple and landscape, her own handiwork in days long gone by when she was styled by her friends Queen of Athens. Her conversation, after she was ninety, was fresh and vigorous; and, despite blindness and imperfect hearing, she kept herself well acquainted with the affairs of the day. The last great speech in Parliament, or the newest bon mot, were equally acceptable and equally relished. Her sense of humour and fun made her, at times, forget her own sufferings, and her splendid memory enabled her to while away many a sleepless hour by repeating long passages from the Bible or Milton. The former she had so much in her heart that it was scarcely possible to believe she was not reading from the Book. Above all was her truly divine gift of charity, the practical application of which, in her every-day life, was only bounded by her means.

It was said of her by one who knew her well—

"She lived to a great age, dispensing kindness and benevolence to the last, and cheered in the sore infirmities of her later years by the love of friends of all ranks, and all parties of all ages.

"The Living Lamp of Lothian, which from Winton, has so long shed its beneficent lustre, has been extinguished, but not so will be lost the memory of the gifted lady, for by not a few will still be cherished the recollection of her noble nature, and of her Christian life."

Lady Ruthven prized the picture referred to. She would not, as Sir Francis Grant relates,[D] permit him to touch the canvas after it left the Abbotsford studio; and it remained a cherished possession which she took pride in showing to appreciative guests, pointing out the details of face and form which she still saw with that inner eye, which time had not darkened.

It is now in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland—bequeathed to the nation with other pictures, as well as the magnificent collection of Greek archaeological objects gathered by herself and Lord Ruthven in their early married life. She was born in 1789, and died in 1885.

[444] Robert Dundas of Arniston, Esq., the worthy representative of an illustrious lineage, died at his paternal seat in June 1838.—J.G.L. See Arniston Memoirs—Three Centuries of a Scottish House, 1571-1838. Edin. 8vo, 1887.

[D] See long and interesting letter of June 5, 1872, from Sir Francis to Sir W.S. Maxwell.—Laing's Catalogue, pp. 72-81.



APRIL.

April 2.—Mr. Henry Liddell, eldest son of Lord Ravensworth, arrived here. I like him and his brother Tom very much. They are what may be termed fine men. Young Mackenzie of Cromarty came with him, who is a fine lad and sings very beautifully. I knew his father and mother, and was very glad to see him. They had been at Mertoun fishing salmon, with little sport.

April 3.—A letter from the Lord Chief Commissioner, reporting Lord Palmerston and Sir Herbert Taylor's letters in Charles's favour. Wrote a grateful answer, and resolved, that as I have made my opinion public at every place where I could be called on or expected to appear, I will not throw myself forward when I have nothing to say. May the Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this vow!

April 4.—Mr. Liddell and Hay Mackenzie left us this morning. Liddell showed me yesterday a very good poem, worthy of Pope or Churchill, in old-fashioned hexameters, called the [illegible]. He has promised me a copy, for it is still being printed. There are some characters very well drawn. The force of it belies the character of a Dandie, too hastily ascribed to the author. He is accomplished as an artist and musician, and certainly has a fine taste for poetry, though he may never cultivate it.[445] He promises to bring his lady—who is very clever, but pretty high, they say, in the temper—to spend a day or two with us after leaving Edinburgh.

April 5.—This fifth day of April is the March fair at Selkirk. Almost every one of the family goes there, Mr. Laidlaw among others. I have a hideous paralytic custom of stuttering with my pen, and cannot write without strange blunders; yet I cannot find any failure in my intellect. Being unable to write to purpose with my own hand, this forenoon was a sort of holiday to me. The third volume of Count Robert is fairly begun, but I fear I shall want stuff to fill it, for I would not willingly bombast it with things inappropriate. If I could fix my mind to the task to-day, my temper, notwithstanding my oath, sets strong towards politics, where I would be sure of making a figure, and feel I could carry with me a great part of the middle-class, who wait for a shot between wind and water—half comic, half serious, which is a better argument than most which are going. The regard of my health is what chiefly keeps me in check. The provoking odium I should mind much less; for there will always be as many for as against me, but it would be a foolish thing to take flight to the next world in a political gale of wind. If Cadell gave me the least encouragement I would give way to the temptation. Meantime I am tugging at the chain for very eagerness. I have done enough to incense people against me, without, perhaps, doing so much as I could, would, or should have done.

April 6.—I have written to Alva and Lord Elgin, explaining why I cannot, as they encourage me to do, take upon me the cause of the public, and bell-the-cat with the reformers. I think I have done enough for an individual.

I have more than half dictated the third volume to Mr. Laidlaw; but I feel the subject wants action, and that a little repose will be very necessary. Resolve to-morrow shall be a resting-day. I have not had one this long time. I had a letter from Croker, advising a literary adventure—the personal history of Charles Edward.[446] I think it will do. Rode to Melrose and brought home the letters from the post-office.

April 8,—I took leave of poor Major John Scott,[447] who, being afflicted with a distressing asthma, has resolved upon selling his house in Ravenswood, which he had dressed up with much neatness, and going abroad to Jamaica. Without having been intimate friends, we were always affectionate relations, and now we part, probably never to meet in this world. He has a good deal of the character said to belong to the family. Our parting with mutual feeling may be easily supposed.

April 9.—This being Saturday, I expect the bibliopolist and typographer about two o'clock, I suppose, when I shall have much to journalise. Failures among the trade are alarming, yet not if we act with prudence. Nous verrons.

Mr. Cadell and J. Ballantyne, with the son of the latter. Their courage is much stouter than I apprehended. Cadell says he has lost L1000 by bad debts, which is less than he expected, by bad times coming on at this time. We have been obliged to publish the less popular part of the Waverley Novels. At present I incline to draw a period after 48 volumes, and so close the publication. About nine or ten volumes will then conclude our Magnum Opus, so called, and Mr. Cadell thinks we shall then begin the Poetical Works, in twelve volumes, with illustrations by Turner, which he expects to rise as far as 12,000. The size is to be that of the Waverley Novels.

April 10.—I had a letter from Mr. Cowan, Trustee for

Constable's creditors, telling that the manuscripts of the Waverley Novels had been adjudged to him, and offering them to me, or rather asking my advice about the disposal of them. Answered that I considered myself as swindled out of my property, and therefore will give no consent to any sale of the pillage.[448] Cadell says he is determined to get the MSS. from Cowan. I told him I would give him the rest of the MSS., which are in my own hand, for Mr. Cadell has been very friendly to me in not suffering me to want money in difficult times. We are not pushed by our creditors, so can take our own time; and as our plans prosper, we can pay off debt. About two o'clock enter two gentlemen in an open carriage, both from Makerstoun, and both Captains in the Navy. Captain Blair, a son of the member for Ayrshire, my old friend the Laird of Blair. Just as they retreat, Mr. Pontey is announced. I was glad to see this great forester. He is a little man, and gets along with an air of talent, something like Gifford, the famous editor of the Quarterly. As in his case mental acuteness gave animation to that species of countenance which attends personal deformity. The whole of his face was bizarre and odd, yet singularly impressive. We walked round, I with great pain, by the Hooded Corbies' seat, and this great Lord of the woodland gave the plantation great approbation. He seems rather systematic in pruning, yet he is in a great measure right. He is tolerably obstinate in his opinions. He dined, leaving me flattered with his applause, and pleased with having seen him.

April 11.—This day I went, with Anne and Miss Jane Erskine,[449] to see the laying of the stones of foundation of two bridges in my neighbourhood over Tweed and the Ettrick. There was a great many people assembled. The day was beautiful, the scene romantic, and the people in good spirits and good-humour. Mr. Paterson[450] of Galashiels made a most excellent prayer; Mr. Smith[451] gave a proper repast to the workmen, and we subscribed sovereigns apiece to provide for any casualty. I laid the foundation-stone of the bridge over Tweed, and Mr. C.B. Scott[452] of Woll that of Ettrick. The general spirit of good-humour made the scene, though without parade, extremely interesting.

April 12.—We breakfasted with the Fergusons, after which Anne and Miss Erskine walked up the Rhymer's Glen. I could as easily have made a pilgrimage to Rome with pease in my shoes unboiled. I drove home, and began to work about ten o'clock. At one o'clock I rode, and sent off what I had finished. Mr. Laidlaw dined with me. In the afternoon we wrote five or six pages more. I am, I fear, sinking a little, from having too much space to fill, and a want of the usual inspiration which makes me, like the chariot wheels of Pharaoh in the sands of the Red Sea, drive heavily. It is the less matter if this prove, as I suspect, the last of this fruitful family.

April 13.—Corrected a proof in the morning. At ten o'clock began where I had left off at my romance. Mr. Laidlaw agrees as to the portion of what we are presently busy with. Laidlaw begins to smite the rock for not giving forth the water in quantity sufficient. I remarked to him that this would not profit much. Doing, perhaps, twelve pages a day will easily finish us, and if it prove dull, why, dull it must be. I shall, perhaps, have half a dozen to make up this night. I have against me the disadvantage of being called the Just, and every one of course is willing to worry me. But they have been long at it, and even those works which have been worst received at their appearance now keep their ground fairly enough. So we'll try our old luck another voyage.

It is a close, thick rain, and I cannot ride, and I am too dead lame to walk in the house. So, feeling really exhausted, I will try to sleep a little.

My nap was a very short one, and was agreeably replaced by Basil Hall's Fragments of Voyages. Everything about the inside of a vessel is interesting, and my friend has the great sense to know this is the case. I remember when my eldest brother took the humour of going to sea, James Watson[453] used to be invited to George Square to tell him such tales of hardships as might disgust him with the service. Such were my poor mother's instructions. But Captain Watson could not render a sea life disgusting to the young midshipman or to his brother, who looked on and listened. The account of assistance given to the Spaniards at Cape Finisterre, and the absurd behaviour of the Junta, are highly interesting—a more inefficient, yet a more resolved class of men than the Spaniards were never conceived.

April 14.—Advised by Mr. Cadell that he has agreed with Mr. Turner, the first draughtsman of the period, to furnish to the poetical works two decorations to each of the proposed twelve volumes, to wit, a frontispiece and vignette to each, at the rate of L25 for each, which is cheap enough considering these are the finest specimens of art going. The difficulty is to make him come here to take drawings. I have written to the man of art, inviting him to my house, though, if I remember, he is not very agreeable, and offered to transport him to the places where he is to exercise his pencil. His method is to take various drawings of remarkable places and towns and stick them all together. He can therefore derive his subjects from good accurate drawings, so with Skene's assistance we can equip him. We can put him at home on all the subjects. Lord Meadowbank and his son, Skene and his son, Colonel Russell and his sister, dined with us.[454]

April 15.—Lord Meadowbank, etc., went to Newark with me, and returned to dine with the foregoing. Charming day.

April 16.—Lord Meadowbank went to the circuit and our party to their various homes. By the bye, John Pringle and his brother of Haining dined with us yesterday. Skene walks with me and undertakes readily to supply Turner with subjects. Weather enchanting. About 100 leaves will now complete Robert of Paris. Query, will it answer? Not knowing, can't say. I think it will.



Sunday 16th [17th] April to Sunday 24th of the same month unpleasantly occupied by ill [health], and its consequences, a distinct shock of paralysis affecting both my nerves and spine, though beginning only on Monday with a very bad cold. Dr. [Abercrombie] was brought out by the friendly care of Cadell, but young Clarkson had already done the needful—that is, had bled and blistered severely, and placed me on a very restricted diet. Whether these precautions have been taken in time I cannot tell. I think they have, though severe in themselves, beat the disease. But I am alike prepared,

"Seu versare dolos, seu certae occumbere morti."[455]

I only know that to live as I am just now is a gift little worth having. I think I will be in the Secret next week unless I recruit greatly.

April 27.—They have cut me off from animal food and fermented liquor of every kind, and would press upon me such trash as panada and the like, which affect my stomach.

This I will none of, but quietly wait till my ordinary diet is permitted, and thank God I can fast with any one. I walked out and found the day delightful; the woods are looking charming, just bursting forth to the tune of the birds. I have been whistling on my wits like so many chickens, and cannot miss any of them. I feel, on the whole, better than I have yet done. I believe I have fined and recovered, and so may be thankful.

April 28 and 29.—Walter made his appearance, well and stout, and completely recovered of his stomach complaints by abstinence. He has youth on his side, and I in age must submit to be a Lazarus. The medical men persist in recommending a seton. I am no friend to these risky remedies, and will be sure of the necessity before I yield consent. The dying like an Indian under torture is no joke, and, as Commodore Trunnion says, I feel heart-whole as a biscuit. My mind turns to politics. I feel better just now, and so I am. I will wait till Lockhart comes, but that may be too late.

FOOTNOTES:

[445] Henry Liddell, second Baron Ravensworth, author of a translation of the Odes of Horace, a volume of Latin Poems, etc.

[446] In a letter from Sir Walter to his son-in-law, of April 11th, he says:—

"When you can take an hour to think of this, I will be glad to hear from you.... I am in possession of five or six manuscripts, copies, or large extracts, taken under my own eyes. Croker thinks, and I am of his opinion, that if there was room for a personal narrative of the character, it would answer admirably."

[447] This gentleman, a brother to the Laird of Raeburn, had made some fortune in the East Indies, and bestowed the name of Ravenswood on a villa which he built near Melrose. He died in 1831.—J.G.L.

[448] The Manuscripts were sold by auction in London on August 19th, 1831, and the prices realised fell far short of what might have been expected, e.g. (1) Monastery, L18; (2) Guy Mannering, L27, 10s.; (3) Old Mortality, L33; (4) Antiquary, L42; (5) Rob Roy, L50; (6) Peveril of the Peak, L42; (7) Waverley, L18; (8) Abbot, L14; (9) Ivanhoe, L12; (10) Pirate, L12; (11) Nigel, L16, 16s.; (12) Kenilworth, L17; (13) Bride of Lammermoor, L14, 14s.—Total L317.—See David Laing's Catalogue, pp. 99-108, for an account of the dispersion and sales of the original MSS., prose and poetry.

[449] Miss J. Erskine, a daughter of Lord Kinnedder's. She died in 1838.—J.G.L.

[450] The Rev. N. Paterson, author of The Manse Garden; afterwards minister of St. Andrew's, Glasgow. He died in 1871. Mr. Paterson was a grandson of Robert Paterson, "Old Mortality," and brother of the Rev. Walter Paterson, minister of Kirkurd, author of the Legend of Iona—a poem written in imitation of the style of Scott, and in which he recognises his obligations to Sir Walter in the following terms:—"From him I derived courage to persevere in an undertaking on which I had often reflected with terror and distrust."—Legend, notes, p. 305.

[451] Mr. John Smith of Darnick, the builder of Abbotsford, and architect of these bridges.—J.G.L.

[452] This gentleman died in Edinburgh on the 4th February 1838.—J.G.L.

[453] The late Captain Watson, R.N., was distantly related to Sir Walter's mother. His son, Sir John Watson Gordon, rose to great eminence as a painter; and his portraits of Scott and Hogg rank among his best pieces. He became President of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1850, died in 1864, leaving funds to endow a Chair of Fine Arts in the Edinburgh University.

[454] Mr. W.F. Skene, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, and son of Scott's dear friend, has been good enough to give me his recollections of these days:—

"On referring to my Diary for the year 1831 I find the following entry: 'This Spring, on 31st April, I went with my father to Abbotsford and left on Sir Walter Scott being taken ill.' The date here given for my visit does not correspond with that in Sir Walter's Diary, but, as there are only thirty days in April it has evidently been written by mistake for the 13th. I had just attained my twenty-first year, and as such a visit at that early age was a great event in my life, I retain a very distinct recollection of the main features of it. I recollect that Lord Meadowbank and his eldest son Alan came at the same time, and the dinner party, at which Mr. Pringle of the Haining and his brother were present. The day after our arrival Sir Walter asked me to drive with him. We went in his open carriage to the Yarrow, where we got out, and Sir Walter, leaning on my arm, walked up the side of the river, pouring forth a continuous stream of anecdotes, traditions, and scraps of ballads. I was in the seventh heaven of delight, and thought I had never spent such a day. On Sunday Sir Walter did not come down to breakfast, but sent a message to say that he had caught cold and had taken some medicine for it the night before, which had made him ill, and would remain in bed. When we sat at either lunch or dinner, I do not recollect which, Sir Walter walked into the room and sat down near the table, but ate nothing. He seemed in a dazed state, and took no notice of any one, but after a few minutes' silence, during which his daughter Anne, who was at table, and was watching him with some anxiety, motioned to us to take no notice, he began in a quiet voice to tell us a story of a pauper lunatic, who, fancying he was a rich man, and was entertaining all sorts of high persons to the most splendid banquets, communicated to his doctor in confidence that there was one thing that troubled him much, and which he could not account for, and that was that all these exquisite dishes seemed to him to taste of oatmeal porridge. Sir Walter told this with much humour, and after a few minutes' silence began again, and told the same story over a second time, and then again a third time.[E] His daughter, who was watching him with increasing anxiety, then motioned to us to rise from table, and persuaded her father to return to his bedroom. Next day the doctor, who had been sent for, told us that he was seriously ill, and advised that his guests should leave at once, so that the house might be kept quiet and his daughter devote herself entirely to the care of her father. We accordingly left at once, and I never saw Sir Walter again. I still, however, retain a memorial of my visit. I had fallen into indifferent health in the previous year, and been recommended Highland air. By Sir Walter's advice I was sent to live with a friend of his, the Reverend Doctor Macintosh Mackay, then minister of Laggan, in the Inverness-shire Highlands, and had passed my time learning from him the Gaelic language. This excited in me a taste for Celtic Antiquities, and finding in Sir Walter's Library a copy of O'Connor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores veteres, I sat up one night transcribing from it the Annals of Tighernac. This transcript is still in my library.—WILLIAM F. SKENE.

"27 INVERLEITH ROW, Sept. 1890."



[E] An echo of one of his own singular illustrations (see Letters on Demonology) of the occasional collision between a disturbed imagination and the organs of sense.

[455] AEneid II. 62.



MAY.

April 30 and May 1.—To meet Sandy Pringle to settle the day of election on Monday. Go on with Count Robert half-a-dozen leaves per day. I am not much pleased with my handiwork. The Chancery money seems like to be paid. This will relieve me of poor Charles, who is at present my chief burthen. The task of pumping my brains becomes inevitably harder when "both chain-pumps are choked below;"[456] and though this may not be the case literally, yet the apprehension is wellnigh as bad.

May 2.—The day passed as usual in dictating (too little) and riding a good deal. I must get finished with Count Robert, who is progressing, as the Transatlantics say, at a very slow pace indeed. By the bye, I have a letter from Nathan T. Rossiter, Williamstown, New York City, offering me a collection of poems by Byron, which are said to have been found in Italy some years since by a friend of Mr. Rossiter. I don't see I can at all be entitled to these, so shall write to decline them. If Mr. Rossiter chooses to publish them in Italy or America he may, but, published here, they must be the property of Lord Byron's executors.

May 3.—Sophia arrives—with all the children looking well and beautiful, except poor Johnnie, who looks very pale. But it is no wonder, poor thing!

May 4.—I have a letter from Lockhart, promising to be down by next Wednesday, that is, to-day. I will consult him about Byron's Exec., and as to these poems said to be his Lordship's. They are very probably first copies thrown aside, or may not be genuine at all. I will be glad to see Lockhart. My pronunciation is a good deal improved. My time glides away ill employed, but I am afraid of the palsy. I should not like to be pinned to my chair. But I believe even that kind of life is more endurable than we could suppose. Your wishes are limited to your little circle—yet the idea is terrible to a man who has been active. My own circle in bodily matters is daily narrowing; not so in intellectual matters, but I am perhaps a bad judge. The plough is coming to the end of the furrow, so it is likely I shall not reach the common goal of mortal life by a few years. I am now in my sixtieth year only, and

"Three score and ten years do sum up."[457]

May 5.—A fleece of letters, which must be answered, I suppose—all from persons, my zealous admirers, of course, and expecting a degree of generosity, which will put to rights all their maladies, physical and mental; and expecting that I can put to rights whatever losses have been their lot, raise them to a desirable rank, and [stand] their protector and patron. I must, they take it for granted, be astonished at having an address from a stranger; on the contrary, I would be astonished if any of these extravagant epistles were from any one who had the least title to enter into correspondence with me. I have all the plague of answering these teasing people.

Mr. Burn, the architect, came in, struck by the appearance of my house from the road. He approved my architecture greatly. He tells me the edifice for Jeanie Deans—that is, her prototype—is nigh finished, so I must get the inscription ready.[458] Mr. Burn came to meet with Pringle of Haining; but, alas! it is two nights since this poor young man, driving in from his own lake, where he had been fishing, an ill-broken horse ran away with him, and, at his own stable-door, overturned the vehicle and fractured poor Pringle's skull; he died yesterday morning. A sad business; so young a man, the proprietor of a good estate, and a well-disposed youth. His politics were, I think, mistaken, being the reverse of his father's; but that is nothing at such a time. Burn went on to Richardson's place of Kirklands, where he is to meet the proprietor, whom I too would wish to see, but I can hardly make it out. Here is a world of arrangements. I think we will soon hit upon something. My son Walter takes leave of me to-day to return to Sheffield. At his entreaty I have agreed to put in a seton, which they seem all to recommend. My own opinion is, this addition to my tortures will do me no good; but I cannot hold out against my son. So, when the present blister is well over, let them try their seton as they call it.

May 6 and 7.—Here is a precious job. I have a formal remonstrance from these critical persons, Ballantyne and Cadell, against the last volume of Count Robert, which is within a sheet of being finished. I suspect their opinion will be found to coincide with that of the public; at least it is not very different from my own. The blow is a stunning one I suppose, for I scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as if I had a remedy ready. Yet God knows, I am at sea in the dark, and the vessel leaky, I think, into the bargain. I cannot conceive that I should have tied a knot with my tongue which my teeth cannot untie. We will see. I am determined to write a political pamphlet coute que coute; ay,—should it cost me my life.

I will right and left at these unlucky proof-sheets, and alter at least what I cannot mend.

May 8.—I have suffered terribly, that is the truth, rather in body than in mind, and I often wish I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will fight it out if I can. It would argue too great an attachment of consequence to my literary labours to sink under. Did I know how to begin, I would begin this very day, although I knew I should sink at the end. After all, this is but fear and faintness of heart, though of another kind from that which trembleth at a loaded pistol. My bodily strength is terribly gone; perhaps my mental too?

May 9.—The weather uncommonly beautiful and I am very eager to get on thinning woods while the peeling season lasts. We made about L200 off wood last season, and this is a sum worth looking at.

May 10.—Some repairs on the mill-dam still keep the people employed, and we cannot get to the thinning. Yet I have been urging them for a month. It's a great fault of Scottish servants that they cannot be taught to time their turns.

May 11.—By old practice I should be going into town to-day, the Court sitting to-morrow. Am I happier that I am free from this charge? Perhaps I am; that is certain, time begins to make my literary labour more precious than usual. Very weak, scarce able to crawl about without the pony—lifted on and off—and unable to walk half a mile save with great pain.

May 12.—Resolved to lay by Robert of Paris, and take it up when I can work. Thinking on it really makes my head swim, and that is not safe. Miss Ferrier comes out to us. This gifted personage, besides having great talents, has conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen among the long list I have encountered,—simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the blue stocking.[459]

May 13.—Mr., or more properly Dr., Macintosh Mackay comes out to see me, a simple learned man, and a Highlander who weighs his own nation justly—a modest and estimable person.

I was beat up at midnight to sign a warrant against some delinquents. I afterwards heard that the officers were pursued by a mob from Galashiels, with purpose of deforcing them as far as St. Boswell's Green, but the men were lodged in Jedburgh Castle.

Reports of mobs at all the elections, which, I fear, will prove too true. They have much to answer for who in gaiety of heart have brought a peaceful and virtuous population to such a pass.

May 14.—Rode with Lockhart and Mr. Mackay through the plantations, and spent a pleasanter day than of late months. Story of a haunted glen in Laggan:—A chieftain's daughter or cousin loved a man of low degree. Her kindred discovered the intrigue and punished the lover's presumption by binding the unhappy man, and laying him naked in one of the large ants' nests common in a Highland forest. He died in agony of course, and his mistress became distracted, roamed wildly in the glen till she died, and her phantom, finding no repose, haunted it after her death to such a degree that the people shunned the road by day as well as night. Mrs. Grant of Laggan tells the story, with the addition, that her husband, then minister of Laggan, fixed a religious meeting in the place, and, by the exercise of public worship there, overcame the popular terror of the Red Woman. Dr. Mackay seems to think that she was rather banished by a branch of the Parliamentary road running up the glen than by the prayers of his predecessor. Dr. Mackay, it being Sunday, favoured us with an excellent discourse on the Socinian controversy, which I wish my friend Mr. Laidlaw had heard.

May 15.—Dr. M. left us early this morning; and I rode and studied as usual, working at the Tales of My Grandfather. Our good and learned Doctor wishes to go down the Tweed to Berwick. It is a laudable curiosity, and I hope will be agreeably satisfied.

May 16 and 17.—I wrote and rode as usual, and had the pleasure of Miss Ferrier's company in my family hours, which was a great satisfaction; she has certainly less affectation than any female I have known that has stood so high—Joanna Baillie hardly excepted. By the way, she [Mrs. Baillie] has entered on the Socinian controversy, for which I am very sorry; she has published a number of texts on which she conceives the controversy to rest, but it escapes her that she can only quote them through a translation. I am sorry this gifted woman is hardly doing herself justice, and doing what is not required at her hands. Mr. Laidlaw of course thinks it the finest thing in the world.[460]

May 18.—Went to Jedburgh to the election, greatly against the wishes of my daughters. The mob were exceedingly vociferous and brutish, as they usually are now-a-days. But the Sheriff had two troops of dragoons at Ancrum Bridge, and all went off quietly. The populace gathered in formidable numbers—a thousand from Hawick alone; they were sad blackguards, and the day passed with much clamour and no mischief. Henry Scott was re-elected—for the last time, I suppose. Troja fuit.

I left the burgh in the midst of abuse and the gentle hint of "Burke Sir Walter." Much obliged to the brave lads of Jeddart. Upwards of forty freeholders voted for Henry Scott, and only fourteen for the puppy that opposed him. Even of this party he gained far the greater number by the very awkward coalition with Sir William Scott of Ancrum. I came home at seven at night.

May 20.—This is the Selkirk election, which I supposed would be as tumultuous as the Jedburgh one, but the soutars of Selkirk had got a new light, and saw in the proposed Reform Bill nothing but a mode of disfranchising their ancient burgh. Although the crowd was great, yet there was a sufficient body of special constables, hearty in their useful office, and the election passed as quietly as I ever witnessed one. I came home before dinner, very quiet. I am afraid there is something serious in Galashiels; Jeffrey is fairly funked about it, and has written letters to the authorities of Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire to caution us against making the precognitions public, which looks ill. Yet I think he would have made arrests when the soldiers were in the country. The time at which I settled at Abbotsford, Whitsunday 1811, I broke up a conspiracy of the weavers. It will look like sympathising with any renewal if another takes place just now. Incendiary letters have been sent, and the householders are in a general state of alarm. The men at Jedburgh Castle are said to be disposed to make a clean breast; if so, we shall soon know more of the matter. Lord William Graham has been nearly murdered at Dumbarton. Why should he not have brought down 50 or 100 lads with the kilts, each with a good kent[461] in his hand fit to call the soul out of the body of these weavers? They would have kept order, I warrant you.

May 21.—Little more than my usual work and my usual exercise. I rode out through the plantations and saw the woodmen getting down what was to be felled. It seems there will be as much for sale as last year of bark: I think about L40 worth. A very nice additional pond to the sawmill has been executed. As for my Tales, they go on well, and are amusing to myself at least. The History of France is very entertaining.

May 22.—I have a letter from my friend John Thomson of Duddingston. I had transmitted him an order for the Duke of Buccleuch for his best picture, at his best price, leaving the choice of the subject and everything else to himself. He expresses the wish to do, at an ordinary price, a picture of common size. The declining to put himself forward will, I fear, be thought like shrinking from his own reputation, which nobody has less need to do. The Duke may wish a large picture for a large price for furnishing a large apartment, and the artist should not shrink from it. I have written him my opinion. The feeling is no doubt an amiable, though a false one. He is modest in proportion to his talents. But what brother of the finer arts ever approached [excellence] so as to please himself?

May 23, 24, and 25.—Worked and exercised regularly. I do not feel that I care twopence about the change of diet as to taste, but I feel my strength much decayed. On horseback my spine feels remarkably sore, and I am tired with a few miles' ride. We expect Walter coming down for the Fife election.

* * * * *

[From May 25th to October 9th there are no dates in the Journal, but the entry beginning "I have been very ill" must have been made about the middle of September. "In the family circle," says Mr. Lockhart, "he seldom spoke of his illness at all, and when he did, it was always in a hopeful strain." "In private, to Laidlaw and myself, his language corresponded exactly with the tone of the Diary. He expressed his belief that the chances of recovery were few—very few—but always added that he considered it his duty to exert what faculties remained to him for the sake of his creditors to the very last.—'I am very anxious,' he repeatedly said to me, 'to be done one way or other with this Count Robert, and a little story about the Castle Dangerous—which also I had long in my head—but after that I will attempt nothing more, at least not until I have finished all the notes for the Novels,'" etc.

On the 18th July he set out in company with Mr. Lockhart to visit Douglas Castle, St. Bride's Church and its neighbourhood, for the purpose of verifying the scenery of Castle Dangerous, then partly printed, returning on the 20th.

He finished that book and Count Robert before the end of August.

In September, Mr. Lockhart, then staying at Chiefswood, and proposing to make a run into Lanarkshire for a day or two, mentioned overnight at Abbotsford that he intended to take his second son, then a boy of five or six years of age, and Sir Walter's namesake, with him on the stage-coach.

Next morning the following affectionate billet was put into his hands:—

To J.G. LOCKHART, Esq., Chiefswood.

"DEAR DON, or Doctor Giovanni,

"Can you really be thinking of taking Wa-Wa by the coach—and I think you said outside? Think of Johnny, and be careful of this little man. Are you par hazard something in the state of the poor capitaine des dragons that comes in singing:—

'Comment? Parbleu! Qu'en pensez vous, Bon gentilhomme, et pas un sous'?

"If so, remember 'Richard's himself again,' and make free use of the enclosed cheque on Cadell for L50. He will give you the ready as you pass through, and you can pay when I ask.

"Put horses to your carriage, and go hidalgo fashion. We shall all have good days yet.

'And those sad days you deign to spend With me I shall requite them all; Sir Eustace for his friends shall send And thank their love in Grayling Hall!'[462]

"W.S."[463]

On the 15th September he tells the Duke of Buccleuch, "I am going to try whether the air of Naples will make an old fellow of sixty young again."

On the 17th the old splendour of the house was revived. Col. Glencairn Burns, son of the poet, then in Scotland, came

"To stir with joy the towers of Abbotsford."

The neighbours were assembled, and, having his son to help him, Sir Walter did the honours of the table once more as of yore.

On the 19th the poet Wordsworth arrived, and left on the 22d.

On the 20th, Mrs. Lockhart set out for London to prepare for her father's reception there, and on the 23d Sir Walter left Abbotsford for London, where he arrived on the 28th.[464]]

FOOTNOTES:

[456] Falconer's Shipwreck, p. 162—"The Storm." 12mo ed. London, Albion Press, 1810.

[457] Scotch Metrical Version of the 90th Psalm.

[458] On the 18th October Sir Walter sent Mr. Burn the following inscription for the monument he had commissioned, and which now stands in the churchyard of Irongray:—

"This stone was erected by the Author of Waverley to the memory of Helen Walker, who died in the year of God 1791. This humble individual practised in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of Jeanie Deans; refusing the slightest departure from veracity, even to save the life of a sister, she nevertheless showed her kindness and fortitude, in rescuing her from the severity of the law, at the expense of personal exertions, which the time rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. Respect the grave of Poverty when combined with the love of Truth and dear affection."

It is well known that on the publication of Old Mortality many people were offended by what was considered a caricature of the Covenanters, and that Dr. M'Crie, the biographer of Knox, wrote a series of papers in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, which Scott affected to despise, and said he would not read. He not only was obliged to read the articles, but found it necessary to inspire or write an elaborate defence of the truth of his own picture of the Covenanters in the Number for January 1817 of the Quarterly Review.

In June 1818, however, he made ample amends, and won the hearts of all classes of his countrymen by his beautiful pictures of national character in the Heart of Midlothian.

It is worth noticing also that ten years later, viz., in December 1828, his friend Richardson having written that in the Tales of a Grandfather "You have paid a debt which you owed to the manes of the Covenanters for the flattering picture which you drew of Claverhouse in Old Mortality. His character is inconceivable to me: the atrocity of his murder of those peasants, as undauntedly devoted to their own good cause as himself to his, his personal (almost hangman-like) superintendence of their executions, are wholly irreconcilable with a chivalrous spirit, which, however scornful of the lowly, could never, in my mind, be cruel," Scott, in reply, gave his matured opinion in the following words:—

"As to Covenanters and Malignants, they were both a set of cruel and bloody bigots, and had, notwithstanding, those virtues with which bigotry is sometimes allied. Their characters were of a kind much more picturesque than beautiful; neither had the least idea either of toleration or humanity, so that it happens that, so far as they can be distinguished from each other, one is tempted to hate most the party which chances to be uppermost for the time."

[459] See Miss Ferrier's account of this visit prefixed to Mr. Bentley's choice edition of her works, 6 vols. cr. 8vo, London, 1881.

[460] Mr. Carruthers remarks in his Abbotsford Notanda:—"Joanna Baillie published a thin volume of selections from the New Testament 'regarding the nature and dignity of Jesus Christ.' The tendency of the work was Socinian, or at least Arian, and Scott was indignant that his friend should have meddled with such a subject. 'What had she to do with questions of that sort?' He refused to add the book to his library and gave it to Laidlaw."—p. 179.

[461] A long staff.

[462] See Crabbe's Sir Eustace Grey.

[463] Life, vol. x. pp. 100-1.

[464] See Life, vol. x. pp. 76-106.



OCTOBER.

INTERVAL.

I have been very ill, and if not quite unable to write, I have been unfit to do so. I have wrought, however, at two Waverley things, but not well, and, what is worse, past mending. A total prostration of bodily strength is my chief complaint. I cannot walk half a mile. There is, besides, some mental confusion, with the extent of which I am not perhaps fully acquainted. I am perhaps setting. I am myself inclined to think so, and, like a day that has been admired as a fine one, the light of it sets down amid mists and storms. I neither regret nor fear the approach of death if it is coming. I would compound for a little pain instead of this heartless muddiness of mind which renders me incapable of anything rational. The expense of my journey will be something considerable, which I can provide against by borrowing L500 from Mr. Gibson. To Mr. Cadell I owe already, with the cancels on these apoplectic books, about L200, and must run it up to L500 more at least; yet this heavy burthen would be easily borne if I were to be the Walter Scott I once was; but the change is great. This would be nothing, providing that I could count on these two books having a sale equal to their predecessors; but as they do not deserve the same countenance, they will not and cannot have such a share of favour, and I have only to hope that they will not involve the Waverley, which are now selling 30,000 volumes a month, in their displeasure. Something of a Journal and the Reliquiae Trotcosienses will probably be moving articles, and I have in short no fears in pecuniary matters. The ruin which I fear involves that of my King and country. Well says Colin Mackenzie:—

"Shall this desolation strike thy towers alone? No, fair Ellandonan! such ruin 'twill bring, That the storm shall have power to unsettle the throne, And thy fate shall be mixed with the fate of thy King."[465]

I fear that the great part of the memorialists are bartering away the dignity of their rank by seeking to advance themselves by a job, which is a melancholy sight. The ties between democrat and aristocrat are sullen discontent with each other. The former are regarded as a house-dog which has manifested incipient signs of canine madness, and is not to be trusted. Walter came down to-day to join our party.

[September 20?]—Yesterday, Wordsworth, his son [nephew[466]] and daughter, came to see us, and we went up to Yarrow. The eldest son of Lord Ravensworth also came to see us, with his accomplished lady. We had a pleasant party, and to-day were left by the Liddells, manent the three Wordsworths, cum caeteris, a German or Hungarian Count Erdoedy, or some such name.