_September_ 26.--Returned to Abbotsford after breakfast. Here is a cool thing of my friend J.W. C[roker]. The Duke of Clarence, dining at the Pavilion with the King, happened by choice or circumstance to sit lower than usual at the table, and being at that time on bad terms with the Board of Admiralty, took an opportunity to say, that were he king he would do all that away, and assume the office of Lord High Admiral. "Your R.H. may act with great prudence," said C[roker]. "The last monarch who did so was James II." Presently after H.M. asked what they were talking of. "It's only his R.H. of C," answered C[roker], "who is so condescending as to tell us what he will do when he is king."
A long letter from R.P. Gillies. I wonder how even he could ask me to announce myself as the author of _Annotations on German Novels_ which he is to write.
_September_ 27.--A day of honest labour--but having much to read, proofs to send off, etc., I was only able to execute my task by three o'clock P.M. Then I went to direct the cutting of wood along the road in front of the house. Dined at Chiefswood with Captain and Mrs. Hamilton, Lady Lucy Whitmore, their guest, and neighbours from Gattonside and Huntly Burn.
_September_ 28.--Another hard brush, and finished four pages by twelve o'clock, then drove out to Cowdenknowes, for a morning visit. The house is ancient and curious, though modernised by vile improvements of a modern roof and windows. The inhabited part has over the principal door the letters S.I.H.V.I.H. The first three indicate probably Sir John Hume, but what are we to make of the rest? I will look at them more heedfully one day. There is a large room said to have been built for the reception of Queen Mary; if so, it has been much modernised. The date on the door is 1576, which would [not] bear out the tradition. The last two letters probably signify Lady Hume's name, but what are we to make of the _V_? Dr. Hume thinks it means _Uxor_, but why should that word be in Latin and the rest in Scotch?
Returned to dinner, corrected proofs, and hope still to finish another leaf, being in light working humour. Finished the same accordingly.
[_Abbotsford_,] _September_ 29.--- A sort of zeal of working has seized me, which I must avail myself of. No dejection of mind, and no tremor of nerves, for which God be humbly thanked. My spirits are neither low nor high--grave, I think, and quiet--a complete twilight of the mind.
Good news of John Lockhart from Lady Montagu, who most kindly wrote on that interesting topic.
I wrote five pages, nearly a double task, yet wandered for three hours, axe in hand, superintending the thinning of the home planting. That does good too. I feel it give steadiness to my mind. Women, it is said, go mad much seldomer than men. I fancy, if this be true, it is in some degree owing to the little manual works in which they are constantly employed, which regulate in some degree the current of ideas, as the pendulum regulates the motion of the timepiece. I do not know if this is sense or nonsense, but I am sensible that if I were in solitary confinement, without either the power of taking exercise or employing myself in study, six months would make me a madman or an idiot.
_September_ 30.--Wrote four pages. Honest James Ballantyne came about five. I had been cutting wood for two hours. He brought his child, a remarkably fine boy, well-bred, quiet, and amiable. James and I had a good comfortable chat, the boys being at Gattonside House. I am glad to see him bear up against misfortune like a man. "Bread we shall eat, or white or brown," that's the moral of it, Master Muggins.
FOOTNOTES:
[333] Sir Thomas Brisbane, who had formerly commanded a brigade in the Peninsula. In 1832 he succeeded Sir Walter Scott as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Sir Thomas had married in 1819 a daughter of Sir Henry Hay Makdougall of Makerstoun, Bart. Sir Thomas died at Brisbane House, Ayrshire, in January 1860, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.
[334] For an account of this family see _The Swintons of that Ilk and their Cadets_, 4to, 1883, a privately printed volume by A.C. Swinton of Kimmerghame. In a letter to his friend Swinton in 1814, Scott says that he had been reading the family pedigree "to my exceeding refreshment."
[335] One of the Abbotsford labourers.
[336] _2 Henry IV_. Act IV. Sc. 2.
[337] Mr. E.W. Auriol Drummond Hay, heir-presumptive at one time of Lord Kinnoul, was then residing in Edinburgh, owing to his official duties in the Lyon Office; he took a great interest in archaeological matters, and was for two years Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries before his departure as Consul General to the Barbary States. He died at Tangier on the 1st March 1845.
[338] Milton's _Comus_, v. 208.--J.G.L.
[339] Lady Scott had not been quite four months dead, and the entry of the preceding day shows how extremely ill-timed was this communication from a gentleman with whom Sir Walter had never had any intimacy. This was not the only proposition of the kind that reached him during his widowhood.--J.G.L.
[340] A coil of rope.
[341] See _Life_, vol. x. 95, and _The Haigs of Bemersyde_, 8vo, Edin. 1881, edited by J. Russell.
[342] Mr. Thomas Shortreed, a young gentleman of elegant taste and attainments, devotedly attached to Sir Walter, and much beloved in return, had recently died.--J.G.L.
[343] See Act III. Sc. 1.
[344] The Rev. Dr. Thomas Somerville, minister of Jedburgh, author of the _History of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Anne_, and other works, died 14th May 1830, in the ninetieth year of his age, and sixty-fourth of his ministry.--J.G.L. Autobiographical Memorials of his _Life and Times_, 1741-1814, 8vo, Edinburgh, were published in 1861.
[345] _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 5.
[346] Afterwards Judge in the Court of Session from 1843, author of _Gleams of Thought reflected from Milton_, etc. It was of this witty and humorous judge Mr. Lockhart wrote the sportive lines:--
"Here lies that peerless paper peer Lord Peter, Who broke the laws of God and man and metre."
Lord Robertson died in 1855.
[347] Act III. Sc. 3.
[348] One of Scott's old High School mates.--_Life_, vol. i. p. 163.
[349] Burns's _Epistle to J. Smith_.
OCTOBER
_October_ 1.--Wrote my task, then walked from one till half-past four. Dogs took a hare. They always catch one on Sunday--a Puritan would say the devil was in them. I think I shall get more done this evening. I would fain conclude the volume at the Treaty of Tilsit, which will make it a pretty long one, by the by. J.B. expressed himself much pleased with _Nap_., which gives me much courage. He is gloomy enough when things are not well. And then I will try something at my _Canongate_. They talk about the pitcher going to the well; but if it goes not to the well, how shall we get water? It will bring home none when it stands on the shelf, I trow. In literature, as in love, courage is half the battle.
"The public born to be controlled Stoops to the forward and the bold."
_October_ 2.--Wrote my task. Went out at one and wrought in the wood till four. I was made happy by a letter from my nephew, little Walter, as we used to call him, from his age and size, compared to those of his cousin. He has been kindly received at Bombay by the Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone, and by Sir Thomas Bradford. He is taking his ground, I think, prudently, and is likely to get on. Already first Lieutenant of Engineers--that is well to begin with.
Colonel Ferguson, Miss Margaret, and some ladies, friends of theirs, dine, also Mr. and Mrs. Laidlaw, and James Laidlaw, and young Mr. N. Milne.
_October_ 3.--I wrote my task as usual, but, strange to tell, there is a want of paper. I expect some to-day. In the meantime, to avoid all quarrel with Dame Duty, I cut up some other leaves into the usual statutory size. They say of a fowl that if you draw a chalk line on a table, and lay chick-a-diddle down with his bill upon it, the poor thing will imagine himself opposed by an insurmountable barrier, which he will not attempt to cross. Suchlike are one-half of the obstacles which serve to interrupt our best resolves, and such is my pretended want of paper. It is like Sterne's want of _sous_ when he went to relieve the _Pauvre Honteux_.
_October_ 4.--I ought to record with gratitude to God Almighty the continued health of body and mind, which He hath vouchsafed to grant me. I have had of late no accesses either of bile or of nervous affection, and by mixing exercise with literary labour, I have escaped the _tremor cordis_ which on other occasions has annoyed me cruelly. I went to the inspection of the Selkirkshire Yeomanry, by Colonel Thornhill, 7th Hussars. The Colonel is a remarkably fine-looking man, and has a good address. His brow bears token of the fatigues of war. He is a great falconer, and has promised to fly his hawks on Friday for my amusement, and to spend the day at Abbotsford. The young Duke of B. was on the field looking at the corps, most of whom are his tenants. They did very well, and are fine, smart young men, and well mounted. Too few of them though, which is a pity. The exercise is a work which in my time I have loved well.