[420] During the winter of 1826-7 Sir Walter suffered great pain (enough
to have disturbed effectually any other man's labours, whether official
or literary) from successive attacks of rheumatism, which seems to have
been fixed on him by the wet sheets of one of his French inns; and his
Diary contains, besides, various indications that his constitution was
already shaking under the fatigue to which he had subjected it.
Formerly, however great the quantity of work he put through his hands,
his evenings were almost all reserved for the light reading of an
elbow-chair, or the enjoyment of his family and friends. Now he seemed
to grudge every minute that was not spent at his desk. The little that
he read of new books, or for mere amusement, was done by snatches in the
course of his meals; and to walk, when he could walk at all, to the
Parliament House, and back again through the Princes Street Gardens, was
his only exercise and his only relaxation. Every ailment, of whatever
sort, ended in aggravating his lameness; and, perhaps, the severest test
his philosophy encountered was the feeling of bodily helplessness that
from week to week crept upon him. The winter, to make bad worse, was a
very cold and stormy one. The growing sluggishness of his blood showed
itself in chilblains, not only on the feet but the fingers, and his
handwriting becomes more and more cramped and confused.--_Life_, vol.
ix. pp. 58-9.
[421] See Bickerstaff's Comic Opera, _The Padlock_.
[422] This gentleman published his own Memoirs (2 vols. 8vo, Lond.
1832). They read like chapters from the _Arabian Nights_. He gives a
somewhat different account of his occupation of Zante, which he says was
effected at Nelson's suggestion, and by Lord Keith's authority. Sir
James died in 1832 at a very great age.
[423] _Henry V_. Act v. Sc. 1.
[424] For _By and attour_, i.e. over and above.
[425] Burns's lines to J. Smith.
[426] Delta's lines on Leslie's portrait of Scott may be recorded
here:--
Brother of Homer and of him
On Avon's shore, mid twilight dim,
Who dreamed immortal dreams, and took
From Nature's hand her picture book;
Time hath not seen, Time may not see,
Till ends his reign, a third like thee.
[427] Now at Bowhill.
[428] James Wolfe Murray succeeded Lord Meadowbank on the Bench as Lord
Cringletie, in November 1816, and died in 1836.
[429] A Party Newspaper started by the Tories in Edinburgh at the
beginning of 1821. It was suppressed in the month of August, but during
the interval contrived to give great offence to the Whig leaders by its
personality. Lockhart says of it that "a more pitiable mass of blunders
and imbecility was never heaped together than the whole of this affair
exhibited;" and Scott, who was one of its founders, along with the Lord
Advocate and other official persons, wrote to Erskine, "I am terribly
malcontent about the _Beacon_. I was dragged into the bond against all
reasons I could make, and now they have allowed me no vote regarding
standing or flying. _Entre nous_, our friends went into the thing like
fools, and came out very like cowards." The wretched libels it contained
cost Sir A. Boswell his life, and for a moment endangered that of
Scott.--See _Life_, vol. vi. pp. 426-429, and Cockburn's _Memorials_, p.
312.
[430] _2 Henry IV_. Act III. Sc. 2.
[431] Douglas Cheape, whose Introductory Lecture was published in 1827.
Mr. Cheape died in 1861.
[432] James Moncreiff, son of the Rev. Sir Henry Wellwood. The new Dean
succeeded Lord Alloway on the Scotch Bench in 1829, and died in 1851.
Cockburn writes of him thus:--"During the twenty-one years he was on the
civil and criminal benches, he performed all his duties admirably.
Law-learning and law-reasoning, industry, honesty, and high-minded
purity could do no more for any judge. After forty years of unbroken
friendship, it is a pleasure to record my love of the man, and my
admiration of his character."--_Journals_, vol. ii, p. 264.
[433] _Troilus and Cressida_, Act v. Sc. 2.
[434] Dr. Stokoe, who had settled at Durham, died suddenly at York in
1852. He had been surgeon in the fleet at Trafalgar, and was afterwards
appointed to St. Helena.
[435] The University Commission.--See _ante_, pp. 256, 257.
[436] The long life of Walter, fifth Duke of Buccleuch, more than
fulfilled the hopes and prognostics of his friend. A "true Scots lord,"
he carried with him to the grave in 1884 the love and respect of his
countrymen.
[437] _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.--J.G.L.
1827