"February 9.— A stormy morning, lowering and blustering like our fortunes. Mea virtute me involvo. But I must say to the muse of fiction as the Earl of Pembroke said to the ejected nuns of Wilton:-Go spin, you jades, go spin!' Perhaps she has no tow on her rock. When I was at Kilkenny last year we went to see a nunnery, but could not converse with the sisters because they were in strict retreat. I was delighted with the red-nosed Padre, who showed us the place with a sort of proud, unctuous humiliation, and apparent dereliction of the world, that had to me the air of a complete Tartuffe; a strong, sanguine, square-shouldered son of the Church, whom a Protestant would be apt to warrant against any sufferings he was like to sustain by privation. My purpose, however, just now was to talk of the strict retreat, which did not prevent the nuns from walking in their little garden, peeping at us, and allowing us to peep at them. Well, now we are in strict retreat; and if we had been so last year, instead of gallivanting to Ireland, this affair might not have befallen if literary labour could have prevented it. But who could have suspected Constable's timbers to have been rotten from the beginning?

"Visited the Exhibition on my way home from the Court. The new rooms are most splendid, and several good pictures. The institution has subsisted but five years, and it is astonishing how much superior the worst of the present collection are to the teaboard-looking things which first appeared. John Thomson, of Duddingstone, has far the finest picture in the Exhibition, of a large size — subject Dunluce, a ruinous castle of the Antrim family, near the Giant's Causeway, with one of those terrible seas and skies which only Thomson can paint. Found Scrope there, improving a picture of his own, an Italian scene in Calabria. He is, I think, one of the very best amateur painters I ever saw Sir George Beaumont scarcely

excepted.

"I would not write to-day after I came home. I will not say could not, for it is not true; but I was lazy; felt the desire far niente, which is the sign of one's mind being at ease.

I read The English in Italy, which is a clever book. Byron used to kick and frisk more contemptuously against the literary gravity and slang than any one I ever knew who had climbed so high. Then, it is true, I never knew any one climb so high- and before you despise the eminence, carrying people along with you as convinced that you are not playing the fox and the grapes, you must be at the top. Moore told me some delightful stories of him. ******† He wrote from impulse, never from effort; and therefore I have always reckoned Burns and Byron the most genuine poetical geniuses of my time, and half a century before me. We have many men of high poetical talent, but none, I think, of that ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural waters. "Mr. Laidlaw dined with us. Says Mr. Gibson told him he would dispose of my affairs, were it any but Sir W. S. No doubt, so should I. I am wellnigh doing so at any rate. But, fortuna juvante! much may be achieved. At worst, the prospect is not very discouraging to one who wants little. Methinks I have been like Burns's poor labourer,

'So constantly in Ruin's sight,

The view o't gives me little fright.'"

† Here follow several anecdotes, since published in Moore's Life of Byron.

CHAPTER LXVII.

Extract from James Ballantyne's Memoranda — Anecdote from Mr. Skene Letters of January and February 1826, to J. G. Lockhart, Mr. Morritt, and Lady Davy Result of the embarrassments of Constable, Hurst, and Ballantyne — Resolution of Sir Walter Scott Malachi Malagrowther.

1826.

I INTERRUPT, for a moment, Sir Walter's Diary, to introduce a few collateral illustrations of the period embraced in the foregoing chapter. When he returned to Edinburgh from Abbotsford on Monday the 16th of January, he found (as we have seen) that Hurst & Co. had dishonoured a bill of Constable's; and then proceeded, according to engagement, to dine at Mr. Skene of Rubislaw's. Mr. Skene assures me that he appeared that evening quite in his usual spirits, conversing on whatever topic was started as easily and gaily as if there had been no impending calamity; but at parting, he whispered, "Skene, I have something to speak to you about; be so good as to look in on me as you go to the Parliament-House to-morrow." When Skene called in Castle Street, about half-past nine o'clock next morning, he found Scott writing in his study. He rose, and said, "My friend, give me a shake of your hand - mine is that of a beggar." He then told him that Ballantyne had just been with him, and that his ruin was certain

and complete; explaining, briefly, the nature of his connexion with the three houses, whose downfall must that morning be made public. He added, "Don't fancy I am going to stay at home to brood idly on what can't be helped. I was at work upon Woodstock when you came in, and I shall take up the pen the moment I get back from Court. I mean to dine with you again on Sunday, and hope then to report progress to some purpose." When Sunday came, he reported accordingly, that, in spite of all the numberless interruptions of meetings and conferences with his partner, the Constables, and men of business to say nothing of his distressing anxieties on account of his wife and daughter he had written a chapter of his novel every intervening day.

The reader may be curious to see what account James Ballantyne's memorandum gives of that dark announcement on the morning of Tuesday the 17th. It is as follows: :- "On the evening of the 16th, I received from Mr. Cadell a distinct message putting me in possession of the truth. I called immediately in Castle Street, but found Sir Walter had gained an unconscious respite by being engaged out at dinner. It was between eight and nine next morning that I made the final communication. No doubt he was greatly stunned - but, upon the whole, he bore it with wonderful fortitude. He then asked, 'Well, what is the actual step we must first take—I suppose we must do something?' I reminded him that two or three thousand pounds were due that day, so that we had only to do what we must do— refuse payment to bring the disclosure sufficiently before the world. He took leave of me with these striking words, 'Well, James, depend upon that, I will never forsake you.""

After the ample details of Scott's Diary, it would be

idle to quote here many of his private letters in January 1826; but I must give two of those addressed to myself,

one written at Abbotsford on the 15th, the day before he started for Edinburgh to receive the fatal intelligence the other on the 20th. It will be seen that I had been so very unwise as to intermingle with the account of one of my painful interviews with Constable, an expression of surprise at the nature of Sir Walter's commercial engagements, which had then for the first time been explained to me; and every reader will, I am sure, appreciate the gentleness of the reply, however unsatisfactory he may consider it as regards the main fact in question.

"To John Lockhart, Esq., 25 Pall-Mall, London.

"Abbotsford, January 15, 1826. "My Dear Lockhart, — I have both your packets. I have been quite well since my attack, only for some time very down-hearted with the calomel and another nasty stuff they call hyoscyamus- and to say truth, the silence of my own household, which used to be merry at this season.

"I enclose the article on Pepys. It is totally uncorrected, so I wish of course much to see it in proof if possible, as it must be dreadfully inaccurate; the opiate was busy with my brain when the beginning was written, and as James Ballantyne complains wofully, so will your printer, I doubt. The subject is like a good sirloin, which requires only to be basted with its own drippings. I had little trouble of research or reference; perhaps I have made it too long, or introduced too many extracts if so, use the pruning-knife, hedgebill, or axe, ad libitum. You know I don't care a curse about what I write, or what becomes of it.

"To-morrow, snow permitting, we go in to Edinburgh ; meantime ye can expect no news from this place. I saw poor