her ninetieth year-so clean, so nice, so well arranged in every respect, that it makes old age lovely. She talks both of late and former events with perfect possession of her faculties, and has only failed in her limbs. A great deal of kind feeling has survived, in spite of the frost of years.

Home to dinner, and worked all the afternoon among the Moniteurs-to little purpose, for my principal acquisition was a headache. I wrote nothing to-day but part of a trifle for Blackwood.

July 22.-The same severe headache attends my poor pate. But I have worked a good deal this morning, and will do more. I wish to have half the volume sent into town on Monday if possible. It will be a royal effort, and more than make up for the blanks of this week.

July 23.-I wrote very hard this day, and attained page 40; 45 would be more than half the volume. Colonel Russell came about one, and carried me out a-walking, which I was all the better of. In the evening we expected Terry and his wife, but they did not come, which makes me fear she may be unwell again.

July 24.-A great number of proof-sheets to revise and send off, and after that I took a fancy to give a more full account of the Constitution framed by Sieyès-a complicated and ingenious web; it is but far too fine and critical to be practically useful.

July 25.—Terry and wife arrived yesterday. Both very well. At dinner-time to-day came Dr. Jamieson1 of the Scottish Dictionary, an excellent good man, and full of auld Scottish cracks, which amuse me well enough, but are caviare to the young people. A little prolix and heavy is the good Doctor; somewhat prosaic, and accustomed to much attention on the Sunday from his congregation, and I hope on the six he officiated for forty-three years; he died in his house in 4 George Square in 1838, aged seventy-nine.

1 Dr. John Jamieson, formerly minister to a Secession congrega. tion in Forfar, removed to a like charge in Edinburgh in 1795, where

other days from his family. So he will demand full attention from all and sundry before he begins a story, and once begun there is no chance of his ending.

July 26.-This day went to Selkirk, and held a Court. The Doctor and Terry chose to go with me. Captain and Mrs. Hamilton came to dinner. Desperate warm weather! Little done in the literary way except sending off proofs. Roup of standing corn, etc., went off very indifferently. Letter from Ballantyne wanting me to write about absentees. But I have enough to do without burning my fingers with politics.

July 27.-Up and at it this morning, and finished four pages. An unpleasant letter from London, as if I might be troubled by some of the creditors there, when going to town to get materials for Nap. I have no wish to go,-none at all. I would even like to put off my visit, so far as John Lockhart and my daughter are concerned, and see them when the meeting could be more pleasant. But then, having an offer to see the correspondence from St. Helena, I can make no doubt that I ought to go. However, if it is to infer any danger to my personal freedom, English wind will not blow on me. It is monstrous hard to prevent me doing what is certainly the best for all parties.

July 28.-I am well-nigh choked with the sulphurous heat of the weather-or I am unwell, for I perspire as if I had been walking hard, and my hand is as nervous as a paralytic's. Read through and corrected St. Ronan's Well. I am no judge, but I think the language of this piece rather good. Then I must allow the fashionable portraits are not the true thing. I am too much out of the way to see and remark the ridiculous in society. The story is terribly contorted and unnatural, and the catastrophe is melancholy, which should always be avoided. No matter; I have corrected it for the press.1

1 This novel was passing through the press in 8vo, 12mo, and 18mo,

to complete collective editions in these sizes.-J. G. L.

Somewhat

The worthy Lexicographer left us to-day. ponderous he is, poor soul! but there are excellent things about him.

Action and Reaction-Scots proverb: "the unrest (i.e. pendulum) of a clock goes aye as far the ae gait as the t'other.” Walter's account of his various quarters per last despatch. Query if original:

"Loughrea is a blackguard place

To Gort I give my curse;
Athlone itself is bad enough,
But Ballinrobe is worse.
I cannot tell which is the worst,
They're all so very bad;
But of all towns I ever saw,

Bad luck to Kinnegad."

Old Mr. Haliburton dined with us, also Colonel Russell. What a man for fourscore or thereby is Old Haly-an Indian too. He came home in 1785.

July 29.-Yesterday I wrought little, and light work, almost stifled by the smothering heat. To-day I wrought about half task in the morning, and, as a judgment on me I think for yesterday's sloth, Mr. H. stayed unusually late in the forenoon. He is my friend, my father's friend, and an excellent, sensible man besides; and a man of eighty and upwards may be allowed to talk long, because in the nature of things he cannot have long to talk. If I do a task to-day, I hope to send a good parcel on Monday and keep tryst pretty well.

July 30.—I did better yesterday than I had hoped forfour instead of three pages, which, considering how my time was cut up by prolonged morning lounging with friend Haly, was pretty fair. I wrote a good task before eleven o'clock, but then my good friends twaddled and dawdled for near two hours before they set off. The time devoted to hospitality, especially to those whom I can reckon upon as sincere good friends, I never grudge, but like to "welcome the coming,

speed the parting guest." By my will every guest should part at half-past ten, or arrange himself to stay for the day.

We had a long walk in a sweltering hot day. Met Mr. Blackwood coming to call, and walked him on with us, so blinked his visit―gratias, domine!! Asked him for breakfast to-morrow to make amends. I rather over-walked myselfthe heat considered.

July 31st. I corrected six sheets and sent them off, with eight leaves of copy, so I keep forward pretty well. Blackwood the bookseller came over from Chiefswood to breakfast, and this kept me idle till eleven o'clock. At twelve I went out with the girls in the sociable, and called on the family at Bemerside, on Dr.1 and Mrs. Brewster, and Mr. Bainbridge at Gattonside House. It was five ere we got home, so there was a day dished, unless the afternoon does something for us. I am keeping up pretty well, however, and, after all, visitors will come, and calls must be made. must not let Anne forego the custom of well-bred society.

1 Afterwards Sir David Brewster. He died at Allerley House on the

Tweed, aged eighty-seven, on February 10, 1868.

AUGUST.

August 1.-Yesterday evening did nothing for the idlesse of the morning. I was hungry; eat and drank and became drowsy; then I took to arranging the old plays, of which Terry had brought me about a dozen, and dipping into them scrambled through two. One, called Michaelmas Term,1 full of traits of manners; and another a sort of bouncing tragedy, called the Hector of Germany, or the Palsgrave.2 The last, worthless in the extreme, is, like many of the plays in the beginning of the seventeenth century, written to a good tune. The dramatic poets of that time seem to have possessed as joint-stock a highly poetical and abstract tone of language, so that the worst of them often remind you of the very best. The audience must have had a much stronger sense of poetry in those days than now, since language was received and applauded at the Fortune or at the Red Bull, which could not now be understood by any general audience in Great Britain. This leads far.

This morning I wrote two hours, then out with Tom Purdie, and gave directions about thinning all the plantations above Abbotsford properly so called. Came in at one o'clock and now set to work. Debout, debout, Lyciscas, debout. Finished four leaves.

August 2.-Well; and to-day I finished before dinner five leaves more, and I would crow a little about it, but here

1 By Middleton, 1697.

The Hector of Germanie, or the Palsgrave Prime Elector. An Honourable History by William Smith. 4to, 1615.

3 Two London playhouses.-See Knight's Biography of Shakespeare.

4 Molière's La Princesse d'Élide (Prologue).