_July_ 10.--Rose rather late: the champagne and turtle, I suppose, for
our reform includes no fasting. Then poor Ardwell came to breakfast;
then Dr. Young's daughter. I have projected with Cadell a plan of her
father's life, to be edited by me.[398] If she does but tolerably, she
may have a fine thing of it. Next came the Court, where sixty judgments
were pronounced and written by the Clerks, I hope all correctly, though
an error might well happen in such a crowd, and----, one of the best men
possible, is beastly stupid. Be that as it may, off came Anne, Charles,
and I for Abbotsford. We started about two, and the water being too deep
didn't arrive till past seven; dinner, etc., filled up the rest of the
day.
_July_ 11, _Abbotsford_.--Corrected my proofs and the lave of it till
about one o'clock. Then started for a walk to Chiefswood, which I will
take from station to station,[399] with a book in my pouch. I have begun
_Lawrie Todd_, which ought, considering the author's undisputed talents,
to have been better. He might have laid Cooper aboard, but he follows
far behind. No wonder: Galt, poor fellow, was in the King's Bench when
he wrote it. No whetter of genius is necessity, though said to be the
mother of invention.
_July_ 12.--Another wet day, but I walked twice up and down the terrace,
and also wrote a handsome scrap of copy, though mystified by the want of
my books, and so forth. Dr. and Mrs. Lockhart and Violet came to
luncheon and left us to drive on to Peebles. I read and loitered and
longed to get my things in order. Got to work, however, at seven in the
morning.
_July_ 13.--Now "what a thing it is to be an ass!"[400] I have a letter
from a certain young man, of a sapient family, announcing that his
sister had so far mistaken my attentions as to suppose I was only
prevented by modesty from stating certain wishes and hopes, etc. The
party is a woman of rank: so far my vanity may be satisfied. But to
think I would wish to appropriate a grim grenadier made to mount guard
at St. James's! The Lord deliver me! I excused myself with little
picking upon the terms, and there was no occasion for much delicacy in
repelling such an attack.
_July_ 14.--The Court of Session Bill is now committed in the House of
Lords, so it fairly goes on this season, and I have, I suppose, to look
for my _congé_. I can hardly form a notion of the possibility that I am
not to return to Edinburgh. My clerk Buchanan came here, and assists me
to finish the _Demonology Letters_, and be d--d to them. But it is done
to their hand. Two ladies, Mrs. Latouche of Dublin, and her niece, Miss
Boyle, came to spend a day or two. The aunt is a fine old lady; the
conversation that of a serious person frightened out of her wits by the
violence and superstition of our workers of miracles in the west.[401]
Miss Boyle is a pretty young woman, rather quiet for an Irish lass.
_July_ 16.--We visited at Lessudden yesterday, and took Mrs. Latouche
thither. To-day, as they had left us, we went alone to Major John's
house of Ravenswood and engaged a large party of cousins to dine
to-morrow.
In the evening a party of foreigners came around the door, and going out
I found Le Comte Ladislaus de Potocki, a great name in Poland, with his
lady and brother-in-law, so offered wine, coffee, tea, etc. The lady is
strikingly pretty. If such a woman as she had taken an affection for a
lame baronet, nigh sixty years old, it would be worth speaking about! I
have finished the _Demonology_.[402]
_July_ 17.--Another bad day, wet past all efforts to walk, and
threatening a very bad harvest. Persecuted with begging letters; an
author's Pegasus is like a post-chaise leaving the door of the inn: the
number of beggars is uncountable. The language they hold of my character
for charity makes my good reputation as troublesome as that of Joseph
Surface.[403] A dinner of cousins, the young Laird of Raeburn, so he
must be called, though nearly as old as I am, at their head. His brother
Robert, who has been in India for forty years, excepting one short
visit: a fine manly fellow, who has belled the cat with fortune, and
held her at bay as a man of mould may. Being all kinsmen and friends, we
made a merry day of our re-union. All left at night.
_July_ 18.--
"Time runs, I know not how, away."
Here am I beginning the second week of my vacation--though what needs me
note that?--vacation and session will probably be the same to me in the
future. The long remove must then be looked to, for the final signal to
break up, and that is a serious thought.
I have corrected two sets of proofs, one for the mail, another for the
Blucher to-morrow.
[_No entry between July 18 and September 5_.]
[Mr. Lockhart remarks that it was during this interval that the
highest point of his recovery was reached. The following little
note accompanied the review of Southey's _Bunyan_ to Chiefswood on
August 6th:---
"Dear Lockhart, I send you the enclosed. I intended to have brought
it myself with help of 'Daddy Dun,' but I find the weather is
making a rain of it to purpose.
"I suppose you are all within doors, and the little gardeners all
off work.--Yours, W.S."]
A playful yet earnest petition, showing Sir Walter's continued
solicitude for the welfare of the good 'Dominie Sampson,' was also
written at this time to the Duke of Buccleuch:--
"ABBOTSFORD, _20th August_.
"The minister of ------ having fallen among other black cocks of
the season, emboldens me once more to prefer my humble request in
favour of George Thomson, long tutor in this family. His case is so
well known to your Grace that I would be greatly to blame if I
enlarged upon it. His morals are irreproachable, his talents very
respectable. He has some oddity of manner, but it is far from
attaching to either the head or the heart....
"It would be felt by me among one of the deepest obligations of the
many which I owe to the house of Buccleuch. I daresay your Grace
has shot a score of black game to-day. Pray let your namesake bag a
parson."