when ours are regular-built cubs. I am not sure if it is an advantage in the long-run. It is a temptation to premature display. Wet to the skin coming from the Court. Called on Skene, to give him, for the Antiquarian Society, a heart, human apparently, stuck full of pins. It was found lying opposite to the threshold of an old tenement, in [Dalkeith], a little below the surface; it is in perfect preservation. Dined at the Bannatyne Club, where I am chairman. We admitted a batch of new members, chiefly noblemen and men connected with the public offices and records in London, such as Palgrave, Petrie, etc. We drank to our old Scottish heroes, poets, historians, and printers, and were funny enough, though, like Shylock, I had no will to go abroad. I was supported by Lord Minto and Lord Eldin. FEBRUARY. February 1.-I feel a return of the cursed rheumatism. How could it miss, with my wetting? Also feverish, and a slight headache. So much for claret and champagne. I begin to be quite unfit for a good fellow. Like Mother Cole in the Minor, a thimbleful upsets me,1-I mean, annoys my stomach, for my brains do not suffer. Well, I have had my time of these merry doings. "The haunch of the deer, and the wine's red dye, Never bard loved them better than I." But it was for the sake of sociality; never either for the flask or the venison. That must end-is ended. The evening sky of life does not reflect those brilliant flashes of light that shot across its morning and noon. Yet I thank God it is neither gloomy nor disconsolately lowering; a sober twilight-that is all. I am in great hopes that the Bannatyne Club, by the assistance of Thomson's wisdom, industry, and accuracy, will be something far superior to the Dilettanti model on which it started. The Historie of K. James VI., Melville's Memoirs, and other works, executed or in hand, are decided boons to Scottish history and literature. February 2.-In confirmation of that which is above stated, I see in Thorpe's sale-catalogue a set of the Bannatyne books, lacking five, priced £25. Had a dry walk from the Court by way of dainty, and made it a long one. Anne went at night to Lady Minto's. Hear of Miss White's death. Poor Lydia! she had a party at dinner on the Friday before, and had written with 1 Foote's Comedy, Act 1. Sc. 1. her own hand invitations for another party. Twenty years ago she used to tease me with her youthful affectations— her dressing like the Queen of Chimney-sweeps on May-day morning, and sometimes with rather a free turn in conversation, when she let her wit run wild. But she was a woman of much wit, and had a feeling and kind heart. She made her point good, a bas-bleu in London to a point not easily attained, and contrived to have every evening a very good literary mêlée, and little dinners which were very entertaining. She had also the newest lions upon town. In a word, she was not and would not be forgotten, even when disease obliged her, as it did for years, to confine herself to her couch; and the world, much abused for hard-heartedness, was kind in her case-so she lived in the society she liked. No great expenditure was necessary for this. She had an easy fortune, but not more. Poor Lydia! I saw the Duke of York and her in London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.1 "The view o't gave them little fright." "2 Did not get quite a day's work finished to-day, thanks to my walk. February 3.-There is nought but care on every hand. James Hogg writes that he is to lose his farm, on which he laid out, or rather threw away, the profit of all his publications. Then Terry has been pressed by Gibson for my debt to him. That I may get managed. I sometimes doubt if I am in what the good people call the right way. Not to sing my own praises, I have been 1 Scott, who had accompanied this lady to the Highlands in the summer of 1808, wrote from Edinburgh on 19th January :-"We have here a very diverting lion and sundry wild beasts; but the most meritorious is Miss Lydia White, who is what Oxonians call a lioness of the first order, with stockings nineteen times dyed blue; very lively, very good-humoured, and extremely absurd. It is very diverting to see the sober Scotch ladies staring at this phenomenon."-Life, vol. iii. pp. 38, 95, 96. -J. G. L. 2 Burns's "Twa Dogs."- willing always to do my friends what good was in my power, and have not shunned personal responsibility. But then that was in money matters, to which I am naturally indifferent, unless when the consequences press on me. But then I am a bad comforter in case of inevitable calamity; and feeling proudly able to endure in my own case, I cannot sympathise with those whose nerves are of a feebler texture. Dined at Jeffrey's, with Lord and Lady Minto, John Murray and his lady,' a Mr. Featherstone, an AmericoYorkshireman, and some others. Mrs. Murray is a very amiable person, and seems highly accomplished; plays most brilliantly. February 4.-R.R. These two letters, you must understand, do not signify, as in Bibliomania phrase, a double degree of rarity, but, chirurgically, a double degree of rheumatism. The wine gets to weak places, Ross says. I have a letter from no less a person than that pink of booksellers, Sir Richard Phillips, who, it seems, has been ruined, and as he sees me floating down the same dark tide, sings out his nos poma natamus. February 5.-R. One R. will do to-day. If this cursed rheumatism gives way to February weather, I will allow she has some right to be called a spring month, to which otherwise her pretensions are slender. I worked this morning till two o'clock, and visited Mr. Grant's pictures, who has them upon sale. They seem, to my inexperienced eye, 2 Lord Cockburn, the delights of 2 Mr. (afterwards Sir Francis) Grant became a member of the Scottish Academy in 1830, an associate of Royal Academy in 1842, and Academician in 1851. His successful career as a painter secured his elevation to the Presidentship of the Academy in 1866. Sir Francis died at Melton-Mowbray in October 1878, aged 75. genuine, or at least, good paintings. But I fear picturebuying, like horse-jockeyship, is a profession a gentleman cannot make much of without laying aside some of his attributes. The pictures are too high-priced, I should think, for this market. There is a very knowing catalogue by Frank Grant himself. Next went to see a show of wild beasts; it was a fine one. I think they keep them much cleaner than formerly, when the strong smell generally gave me a headache for the day. The creatures are also much tamer, which I impute to more knowledge of their habits and kind treatment. A lion and tigress went through their exercise like poodles-jumping, standing, and lying down at the word of command. This is rather degrading. I would have the Lord Chancellor of Beasts good-humoured, not jocose. I treated the elephant, who was a noble fellow, to a shilling's worth of cakes. I wish I could have enlarged the space in which so much bulk and wisdom is confined. He kept swinging his head from side to side, looking as if he marvelled why all the fools that gaped at him were at liberty, and he cooped up in the cage. Dined at the Royal Society Club-about thirty present. Went to the Society in the evening, and heard an essay by Peter Tytler1 on the first encourager of Greek learning in England.2 February 6.-Was at Court till two; afterwards wrote a 1 Patrick Fraser Tytler, the Scottish historian. He died on Christmas-day 1849, aged fifty-eight.-See Burgon's Memoirs, 8vo, Lond. 1859. 2 Audubon says in his Journal of the same date:-"Captain Hall led me to a seat immediately opposite to Sir Walter Scott, the President, where I had a perfect view of the great man, and studied Nature from Nature's noblest work." The publication of Audubon's great work, The Birds of America, commenced in 1827, and was com pleted in 1839, forming 4 vols. in the largest folio size, and containing 435 plates. It shows the indomitable courage of the author, that even when the work was completed, he had only 161 subscribers, 82 of whom were in America. The price of the book was two guineas for each part with 5 coloured plates. During the last dozen years its price at auctions runs about £250 to £300. Audubon died in New York in 1851.-See Life, by Buchanan, 8vo, London, 1866. |