CHAPTER LXV. Sir Walter's Diary begun, November 20, 1825 Sketches of various Friends William Clerk Charles Kirkpatrick - Sharpe - Lord Abercrombie - The first Earl of Minto Lord Byron-Henry Mackenzie-Chief Baron Shepherd Solicitor-General Hope Thomas Mathews Count Davidoff, &c. &c. · Moore Charles Society of Edinburgh - Religious opinions and feelings Various alarms about the house of Hurst, Robinson, & Company – "Storm blows over" and Song of Bonny Dundee, written at Christmas. 1825. 66 THE Journal, on which we are about to enter, has on the title-page, "Sir Walter Scott of Abbotsford, Bart., his Gurnal; "-and this foot-note to Gurnal, “A hard word, so spelt on the authority of Miss Sophia Scott, now Mrs. Lockhart." This is a little joke, alluding to a notebook kept by his eldest girl during one of the Highland expeditions of earlier days, in which he was accompanied by his wife and children. The motto is, These lines are quoted also in his reviewal of Pepys's Diary. That book was published just before he left Edinburgh in July. It was, I believe, the only one he took with him to Ireland; and I never observed him more delighted with any book whatsoever. He had ever afterwards many of its queer turns and phrases on his lips. The reader cannot expect that any chapter in a Diary of this sort should be printed in extenso within a few years of the writer's death. The editor has, for reasons which need not be explained, found it necessary to omit and very some passages altogether — to abridge others frequently to substitute asterisks or arbitrary initials for names. But wherever omissions or alterations have been made, these were dictated by regard for the feelings of living persons; and, if any passages which have been retained should prove offensive to such feelings, there is no apology to be offered, but that the editor found they could not be struck out, without losing some statement of fact, opinion, or sentiment, which it seemed impossible to sacrifice without injustice to Sir Walter Scott's character and history. DIARY. "Edinburgh- November 20, 1825. —I have all my life regretted that I did not keep a regular Journal. I have myself lost recollection of much that was interesting; and I have deprived my family of some curious information by not carrying this resolution into effect. I have bethought me, on seeing lately some volumes of Byron's notes, that he probably had hit upon the right way of keeping such a memorandum-book, by throwing out all pretence to regularity and order, and marking down events just as they occurred to recollection. I will try this plan; and behold, I have a handsome locked volume, such as might serve for a lady's Album. Nota bene — John Lockhart, and Anne, and I, are to raise a Society for the Suppression of Albums. It is a most troublesome shape of mendicity. Sir, your autograph — a line of poetry—or a prose sentence!. Among all the sprawling sonnets, and blotted trumpery that dishonours these miscellanies, a man must have a good stomach that can swallow this botheration as a compliment. "I was in Ireland last summer, and had a most delightful tour. There is much less of exaggeration about the Irish than might have been suspected. Their poverty is not exaggerated; it is on the extreme verge of human misery; their cottages would scarce serve for pig-sties, even in Scotland and their rags seem the very refuse of a rag-shop, and are disposed on their bodies with such ingenious variety of wretchedness, that you would think nothing but some sort of perverted taste could have assembled so many shreds together. You are constantly fearful that some knot or loop will give, and place the individual before you in all the primitive simplicity of Paradise. Then for their food, they have only potatoes, and too few of them. Yet the men look stout and healthy, the women buxom and well-coloured. "Dined with us, being Sunday, Will Clerk and C. Sharpe. William Clerk is the second son of the celebrated author of 'Naval Tactics.' I have known him intimately since our college days; and to my thinking, never met a man of greater powers, or more complete information on all desirable subjects. In youth he had strongly the Edinburgh pruritus disputandi ; but habits of society have greatly mellowed it, and though still anxious to gain your suffrage to his views, he endeavours rather to conciliate your opinion than conquer it by force. Still there is enough of tenacity of sentiment to prevent, in London society, where all must go slack and easy, W. C. from rising to the very top of the tree as a conversation man; who must not only wind the thread of his argument gracefully, but also know when to let go. But I like the Scotch taste better; there is more matter, more information above all, more spirit in it. Clerk will, I am afraid, leave the world little more than the report of his powers. He is too indolent to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe is finish any considerable work. another very remarkable man. but never took orders. He has infinite wit and a great turn for antiquarian lore, as the publications of Kirkton, &c. bear witness. His drawings are the most fanciful and droll imaginable- a mixture between Hogarth and some of those foreign masters who painted temptations of St. Anthony, and such grotesque subjects. As a poet he has not a very strong touch. Strange that his finger-ends can describe so well what he cannot bring out clearly and firmly in words. If he were to make drawing a resource, it might raise him a large income. But though a lover of antiquities, and, therefore, of expensive trifles, C. K. S. is too aristocratic to use his art to assist his purse. He is a very complete genealogist, and has made many detections in Douglas and other books on pedigree, which our nobles would do well to suppress if they had an opportunity. Strange that a man should be curious after scandal of centuries old! Not but Charles loves it fresh and fresh also, for being very much a fashionable man, he is always master of the reigning report, and he tells the anecdote with such gusto that there is no helping sympathizing with him a peculiarity of voice adding not a little to the general effect. My idea is, that C. K. S., with his oddities, tastes, satire, and high aristocratic feelings, resembles Horace Walpole perhaps in his person also, in a general way. See Miss Hawkins's Anecdotes* for a description of the author of the Castle of Otranto. No other company at dinner except my cheerful and good-humoured friend Missie Macdonald,† so called in fondness. One bottle of champaign, with the ladies' assistance, two of claret. — I observe that both these great connoisseurs were very nearly, if not quite agreed, that there are no absolutely undoubted originals of Queen Mary. But how, then, should we be so very distinctly informed as to her features? What has become of all the originals which suggested * Anecdotes, Biographical Sketches, and Memoirs, collected by Lætitia Matilda Hawkins, 8vo, London, 1822, pp. 91-117; 308–313. † Miss Macdonald Buchanan of Drummakiln. these innumerable copies? Surely Mary must have been as unfortunate in this as in other particulars of her life. 6 I am enamoured of my journal. I "November 21, 1825. wish the zeal may but last. - Once more of Ireland. I said their poverty was not exaggerated - neither is their wit nor their good-humour nor their whimsical absurdity nor their courage. Wit. — I gave a fellow a shilling on some occasion when sixpence was the fee. 'Remember you owe me sixpence, Pat.' May your honour live till I pay you.' There was courtesy as well as art in this, and all the clothes on Pat's back would have been dearly bought by the sum in question. "Good-humour. There is perpetual kindness in the Irish cabin butter-milk, potatoes a stool is offered, or a stone is rolled that your honour may sit down and be out of the smoke, and those who beg everywhere else seem desirous to exercise free hospitality in their own houses. Their natural disposition is turned to gaiety and happiness: while a Scotchman is thinking about the term-day, or, if easy on that subject, about hell in the next world — while an Englishman is making a little hell in the present, because his muffin is not well roasted Pat's mind is always turned to fun and ridicule. They are terribly excitable, to be sure, and will murder you on slight suspicion, and find out next day that it was all a mistake, and that it was not yourself they meant to kill, at all at all. “Absurdity. — They were widening the road near Lord Claremont's seat as we passed. A number of cars were drawn up together at a particular point, where we also halted, as we understood they were blowing a rock, and the shot was expected presently to go off. After waiting two minutes or so, a fellow called out something, and our carriage as a planet, and the cars for satellites, started all forward at once, the Irishmen whooping, and the horses galloping. Unable to learn the meaning of this, I was only left to suppose that they had delayed firing the intended shot till we should pass, and that we were passing quickly to make the delay as short as possible. No such thing. By dint of making great haste, we |